Claiming the Mantle of Cyril: Cyril of Alexandria and the Road to Chalcedon (Late Antique History and Religion, 24) 9042942576, 9789042942578

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LATE ANTIQUE HISTORY AND RELIGION 24

CLAIMING THE MANTLE OF CYRIL Cyril of Alexandria and the Road to Chalcedon

by

Patrick T.R. Gray

PEETERS

CLAIMING THE MANTLE OF CYRIL

L A H  R General Editor Hagit Amirav (Oxford) Series Editors Bas ter Haar Romeny (Amsterdam), Emiliano Fiori (Venice), James Carleton Paget (Cambridge), Gavin Kelly (Edinburgh) Advisory Board Averil Cameron (Oxford), Brouria Bitton-Ashkelony (Jerusalem), Evangelos Chrysos (Athens), Christoph Markschies (Berlin), Susanna Elm (Berkeley)

LAHR Volume 24

Late Antique History and Religion is a peer-reviewed series.

CLAIMING THE MANTLE OF CYRIL Cyril of Alexandria and the Road to Chalcedon

by

Patrick T.R. Gray

PEETERS  –  – ,  2021

ISBN 978-90-429-4257-8 eISBN 978-90-429-4258-5 D/2021/0602/57 A catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. © 2021, Peeters, Bondgenotenlaan 153, B-3000 Leuven, Belgium No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage or retrieval devices or systems, without prior written permission from the publisher, except the quotation of brief passages for review purposes.

TABLE OF CONTENTS Preface........................................................................................................



Abbreviations............................................................................................



Chapter 1. A Familiar Story or a Tangle of Mysteries? ....................

1

A Familiar Story .............................................................................. A Tangle of Plots and Mysteries....................................................

1 3

Chapter 2. e Shiing Sands of Cyrillian and Chalcedonian Scholarship ........................................................................................

9

e Pre-Twentieth-Century View ................................................. e First Part of the Twentieth Century ..................................... e Later Twentieth Century ......................................................... e Twenty-First Century ..............................................................

10 11 14 17

Chapter 3. Cyril before Nestorius: Acquiring a Reputation for Orthodoxy .........................................................................................

21

Cyril and the Tradition of the Fathers ......................................... Nurtured at the Hands of an Orthodox Father .......................... Cyril and Constantinople ............................................................... Incompatible Faith Positions ......................................................... e Insouciant Language of Cyril ................................................

22 28 29 31 36

Chapter 4. Challenge and Response: Nestorius takes on Cyril ......

43

Nestorius and the Young Turks ..................................................... Cyril Joins the Fray: e Letter-Writing Begins ........................ Cyril’s Campaign to Win Back the Monks ................................. eotokos and the Tradition.......................................................... Cyril’s Authority Consolidated ..................................................... Antiochene Letters: How Not to Win Support...........................

44 47 49 51 52 55

Chapter 5. War or Accommodation? ..................................................

59

e Right Letters to the Right People .......................................... e Way of the Holy Fathers vs. Innovation...............................

60 64

VI

   From Strained Civility to Hostility .............................................. e Antiochene Leadership Proposes a Strategy ....................... Ultimatum from Rome and Alexandria ......................................

67 73 76

Chapter 6. e Conciliar Solution .......................................................

81

e Emperor’s Vision for a Council ............................................. Cyril’s Strategy ................................................................................. Council or Councils? ...................................................................... False Start/Official Start.................................................................. Cyril’s Council, June 22: Nestorius and a New Antiochene Strategy ...................................................................................... Cyril’s Council, June 22: e Trial of Nestorius ........................

82 84 85 86

Chapter 7. First Responses ....................................................................

95

John’s Council .................................................................................. Waiting for eodosius ................................................................... Who was Really True to the Creed of Nicaea? ........................... Trying to End Stalemate .................................................................

99 102 105 106

Chapter 8. e ‘Union’ of 433 ...............................................................

115

The Condemnation of Nestorius: A Precondition for Rapprochement ........................................................................ e Union..........................................................................................

116 121

Chapter 9. War in a Time of Peace (433–48) .....................................

125

Skirmishing over the Condemnation of Nestorius .................... e Nestorian Offensive ................................................................. Cyril, John, and the Charge of Nestorianism ............................. Saving the Union ............................................................................. What Did the Union Commit One To? ....................................... What did Cyril Mean by ‘Two Natures’?..................................... Before and Aer the Union............................................................ Diodore and eodore .................................................................... Aer Cyril’s Death ..........................................................................

126 128 130 131 132 135 138 143 144

Chapter 10. e Home Synod of 448 ..................................................

145

Staging a Trial .................................................................................. Privileged Letters and Cyrillian Orthodoxy ...............................

146 148

88 91

  

VII

What Eutyches Stood For ............................................................... Other Strategies................................................................................

153 154

Chapter 11. e Second Council of Ephesus......................................

157

eodosius’ Volte-face..................................................................... Setting the Agenda .......................................................................... New-formulae Cyrillians Turn to the Law .................................. Hearings Preparatory to the Council ........................................... e Second Council of Ephesus .................................................... A Different Construction of Cyril ................................................ East and West aer the Council.................................................... e Myth of the ‘Eutychian Heresy’.............................................

158 160 162 166 172 175 180 182

Chapter 12. e Council of Chalcedon Opens ..................................

183

Rome’s Agenda ................................................................................. False Starts ........................................................................................ Ecumenical Council as Court of Appeal ..................................... Session I: Reversing Ephesus II ..................................................... Inventing the Violent Dioscorus ................................................... Flavian, Cyril, and the Home Synod ............................................ A Deceptive Version? ...................................................................... e First Session Ends .................................................................... Setting the Agenda for Session II..................................................

184 188 191 194 197 201 207 208 210

Chapter 13. Session of Oct. 10: e Eastern Bishops Resist ............

213

Chapter 14. Session of Oct. 13: e Trial of Dioscorus by his Peers ...................................................................................................

221

Chapter 15. Sessions IV and V .............................................................

227

A Truceless War ............................................................................... e Empire Strikes Back.................................................................

228 234

Chapter 16. Chalcedon and the Nestorians........................................

245

e Case of eodoret .................................................................... e Case of Ibas ...............................................................................

245 247

Chapter 17. A Troubled Legacy ............................................................

253

VIII

  

Chapter 18. Putting together a Road-Map .........................................

257

Chapter 19. Conclusion ..........................................................................

277

Epilogue. Sixth-Century Retrospectives: Nets, Prattlings, and Yapping Epistles .............................................................................................. 283 Bibliography .............................................................................................. Primary Sources ............................................................................... Secondary Sources ...........................................................................

293 293 296

Index .......................................................................................................... Index of Persons ............................................................................... Index of Subjects ..............................................................................

299 299 303

PREFACE Cyril of Alexandria has been at the centre of my research life from the beginning: he was the subject of the Bachelor’s thesis suggested by my advisors, and had a major role in my Master’s thesis on patristic christology. I by no means agreed with him, but somehow I found him fascinating. Fascinating, but so far I had nothing really original to say about him, and what I wrote followed pretty traditional lines. at was to change. My study of patristic christology le me with a huge unanswered question: what happened after Chalcedon? Almost everyone who wrote about patristic christology wrote as if, Chalcedon having resolved all the problems, the christological controversy simply stopped dead in its tracks; Chalcedon had said literally the last word. I, however, found myself unable to believe that a controversy so intensely fought could stop just like that; I was sure that the fights that led up to Chalcedon continued, even if prosecuted under different names. us began the work that issued in my The Defense of Chalcedon in the East (451–553). Whom should I find at the centre of the ongoing struggle inherited from the previous episode – for there was an ongoing struggle, as I quickly learned – but Cyril of Alexandria? Cyril having died in 444, we could more precisely say that the issue was no longer Cyril himself, but what Cyril had taught, which parts of his writings truly represented what he taught, and which were authoritative for doctrine. Chalcedon split the church in the east between Chalcedonians who accepted her statement of faith, and anti-Chalcedonians who did not. ey carried on the fight that had begun with Cyril and Nestorius. Were anti-Chalcedonians the truly faithful ones because they insisted on adherence to certain formulae introduced into the controversy by Cyril late in his career? Were they right to claim that Chalcedon’s statement of faith was merely a cover for the very Antiochene ideas that had brought about the fall of Nestorius? Or were Chalcedonians faithful in their insistence on the more moderate language of Cyril’s earlier writings? Developments did not stop there. Between Chalcedonians and anti-Chalcedonians there emerged the Neochalcedonian enterprise, namely, the attempt by some Chalcedonians to resolve the issues by demonstrating what they took to be the substantive agreement between the parties despite their incompatibility on language. e focus had changed, but this too was all about Cyril.

X



e narrative that was all about Cyril was a good narrative, and I was proud to have contributed to it. Neo-Chalcedonians’ eirenic way of resolving the conflict initiated by Cyril and Nestorius had a certain appeal. Sadly, I found that it could not stand. e pillars on which it stood in the record for the years 428 to 451 were eroded by discovery aer discovery I made in the record. ough their existence had been almost universally ignored, I could not ignore it once seen. It was clear that I had all too glibly accepted the eirenic account agreed by scholars. Now it called out for replacement by something more realistic. us my very different, one might even say eristic, version of what was going on in this crucial period began to take shape. For my version, things were seldom what they claimed to be. ere were strategies and plots and manoeuverings a-plenty. For instance, some bishops rigged synods; they pretended to condemn what they actually believed; a monk with poor eyesight was forbidden to have anyone else read his statement, though he could not read it himself, and was condemned for it; a council’s preferred statement of faith was summarily dismissed in favour of a statement it had just before this vigorously opposed. So it went on. A dominant theme emerged. e rich material for the period 428–451 proves to be occupied almost entirely with attempts by factions to dominate the church by successfully demonstrating that what one’s faction maintained most truly represented what the authoritative Cyril believed. Hence our title: this was to claim the mantle of Cyril. Cyril was, as always, at the centre. So true was this that even his enemies realized that a successful claim to the mantle of Cyril required at least appearing to believe that his writings were authoritative, and that they, his enemies, said only what he said. Even eodoret, his long-time advocate succumbed at Chalcedon. Claiming Cyril’s mantle was the occupation of the period. In place of the eirenic – and, if one thinks about it, implausible – steady progress that supposedly took place from Nestorius to Chalcedon, our version would have you accept what the literature upon close examination shows us, a series of attempts, however devious, to claim the persuasive power enjoyed by Cyril in support of this side or that... Notice that, before getting to the main argument, I offer some explanation as to how it was that Cyril came to be the icon of orthodoxy. It is an interesting enough question in its own right, and well worth our attention, without being something that absolutely requires our attention: those for whom it has no charm are invited to skip ahead to the really engrossing questions. anks are owed to several institutions, chief among them the libraries of the University of Toronto, particularly Regis College and the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies. Without their resources I could not



XI

have contemplated a study of this sort. A fellowship at the Stanley J. Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies, Princeton gave me an opportunity to begin investigating critically the trial of Eutyches, a crucial first step along the way to what would be a new understanding of the period. While mine has been for the most part a solitary venture, some colleagues and students have played a useful part. Many years ago it was the late Eugene Fairweather and James Patrick who conspired in recommending that I work on Cyril for my bachelor’s thesis, the beginning of a lifelong fascination for me, and one for which I am grateful. I received vital encouragement and support from fellow scholars, among them Timothy Barnes, Dana Iuliana Viezure, Barrie Wilson, and Istvan Perczel. Richard Price is owed particular thanks: he generously shared resources with me, and gave wise counsel when I badly needed it. George R. Bevan, a prized graduate student, joined me in the work on Eutyches, eventually co-authoring with me an article laying out a new understanding of the supposed heretic that proved pivotal for the deepening of my understanding. I learned much of value to the present work from Bevan and other graduate students in my Trinity College Toronto course on christology. It was oen a stimulating classroom discussion that exposed weaknesses in the scholarly consensus’ analysis and pointed the way to a new understanding. Unusually, I would like to thank also a brilliant undergraduate student, Daraius Bharucha, for his perceptive comments on the MS. Francesco Celia deserves the highest praise for his part in bringing the MS to a satisfactory state for publication. Finally, I would like to thank my beloved wife Cathy for her unwavering support through the many years of this work’s gestation.

ABBREVIATIONS ACC ACO AAM BETL BF BZ CSCO CSEL DOP FC HJ JECS JEH JThS LAHR MSR PG PO RThL SC SHCT ST StPatr

Acts of the Council of Chalcedon Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum Abhandlungen der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaen Bibliotheca Ephemeridum eologicarum Lovaniensium Byzantinische Forschungen Byzantinische Zeitschri Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum Dumbarton Oaks Papers Fathers of the Church Historisches Jahrbuch Journal of Early Christian Studies Journal of Ecclesiastical History Journal of eological Studies Late Antique History and Religion Mélanges de Science Religieuse Patrologia Graeca Patrologia Orientalis Revue éologique de Louvain Sources Chrétiennes Studies in the History of Christian ought Studi e Testi Studia Patristica

C 1

A FAMILIAR STORY OR A TANGLE OF MYSTERIES? A F S Anyone who has studied the church fathers is bound to have been exposed to a familiar story. It is the story of that series of events, that road the church followed, from the outbreak of the Nestorian Controversy in 428 to the Council of Chalcedon in 451, during which, the story supposes, orthodox christology was worked out once and for all to the satisfaction of the church, though not for Monophysite heretics. is is the story of the Nestorian Controversy. According to the story, Nestorius outraged orthodoxy when he championed dividing the divine and human elements in Christ into two natures, one divine and one human, and holding them to be united only by conjunction rather than true union. He and his sympathizers in the school of Antioch therefore refused to call Mary theotokos (bearer of God).1 Rising to orthodoxy’s defence, Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria and formed by the school of Alexandria, attacked Nestorius, finally joining with Pope Celestine in anathematizing him and his teaching, and restoring christological balance. At the Council of Ephesus in 431 Nestorius was condemned and deposed, whereas the title theotokos for Mary, and the oneness of Christ, were confirmed. In 433 John of Antioch, formerly a defender of Nestorius, came to an agreement with Cyril on the unity of Christ, but also on the correctness of speaking of two natures in him, a balanced position – Cyril had earlier spoken of the one nature of Christ as a way of affirming his unity. Two-natures language was indeed recognized as orthodox by Cyril in 433, but not by some of his more radical admirers, who had adopted against Nestorian thinking their hero’s earlier view that Christ was ‘out of one nature’. Taken to an extreme by, among others, the aged monk Eutyches, ‘one nature’ became the rallying cry for those who failed to recognize the importance of there being a full human nature in Christ. ings were out of balance again. Under the leadership of Cyril’s successor in Alexandria, Dioscorus, and with 1. Theotokos, as used by the eastern church, means ‘Bearer of God’. In the west the word is translated, inaccurately, as ‘Mater Dei’ (Mother of God), which leaves open the heretical implication that the divine Word had his derivation from her rather than from God the Father.

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the support of Emperor eodosius II, these Monophysites maintained firmly the unity of Christ and Mary’s status as theotokos. ey dominated an illegitimate second council at Ephesus in 449. It was opposed by an alliance of Rome, Constantinople, the cadre of Antiochene bishops, and moderate Cyrillians. Under the new emperor, Marcian, Chalcedon annulled this heretical council in 451, condemned and deposed Dioscorus and Eutyches as Monophysites. A balanced orthodoxy was enabled by Chalcedon’s use of different languages for Christ’s unity and his duality: Christ was in two ‘natures’, but also known in one ‘person’ and ‘hypostasis’. e whole church, from moderate Cyrillians to moderate Antiochenes, including in the latter case even Cyril’s former enemy, eodoret, joined in this harmonious and balanced orthodoxy. All had turned out well, except for the sad sequel: the perverse refusal of Monophysites to say ‘two natures’. eir separation from the official church deepened over time, and they eventually became the separate Monophysite church that exists, for example, with the Copts of Egypt to this day. Like all old, familiar tales, this one sounds perfectly natural in the ears of those who have heard it over and over again. It has acquired the seeming inevitability of the o-repeated. Its characters are well known. ose whom we always cheered as saints and fathers naturally won, as they were bound to do; those whom we always jeered as heretics naturally lost, as they too were bound to do. e story unfolded as it should, the most natural thing in the world. It therefore required no explanation. If there were voices challenging the accepted view, if there were troublesome bits of evidence telling against it, they went unnoticed and unheard. Familiarity, and the inevitability stories acquire just by being familiar, are only part of the story. One suspects the fact that much of the research into the Nestorian Controversy has been done by those belonging to western Christian institutions, has played its part in leading them to invest the Nestorian Controversy with a certain inherent momentum, an inevitable drive forward to its consummation in the promulgation of Chalcedon’s Statement of Faith. One way of fleshing that out would be to assume – as has indeed been assumed by the many taking this view – that it was pulled forward from the less perfect to the more perfect theological understanding: by a kind of theological teleology it was purposed and destined that the inadequacy of Nestorius on Christ’s unity, and of Cyril on his duality, would be succeeded by an integrated understanding of the full divine/ human reality of the one Christ, the controversy being its vehicle. Chalcedon, providing the perfected dogma to meet the church’s need, was the real goal and ultimately the great achievement of the controversy. at is one way of looking at it. It is also possible, though, to ascribe the causality

A FAMILIAR STORY OR A TANGLE OF MYSTERIES?

3

supposed to be at work to a push from behind rather than a pull from in front. On this view, theologians were driven, it might be said, by a characteristic desire on their part to go beyond partial expressions of dogma, and to arrive in the end at perfectly coherent conceptual language for the complex reality of Christ. e two-natures, one-person-and-hypostasis language of Chalcedon was therefore a triumph for scholars of both persuasions: this was where the church was supposed to arrive on the topic of christology; or, this was where theologians could logically be expected to arrive in sorting out the concepts. Wittingly or unwittingly, accepting either of these ways of identifying, as it were, the levers driving events from the outbreak of the Nestorian Controversy to the Council of Chalcedon has had a disastrous effect on historical scholarship. On either view, one already had an answer to the question ‘Why did the controversy take the road it did?’ It was an answer history for a long time found satisfactory. What motive, then, did one have for looking further? ere was none. Moreover, there was an obvious further disincentive to the taking of new approaches: who would tackle the voluminous material that a new approach would inevitably demand, when there were already published collections of ‘key texts’ – we mention again Chalcedon’s Statement of Faith by way of an example of a key text – that could supposedly be relied upon to tell the essential story? Collections of conciliar acts other than the favoured few; collections of letters; accounts of commission meetings of one sort or another, and collections of ‘published materials’2 could be le to languish on library shelves. A T  P  M While for those willing to accept complacently that the story unfolded as it did because that was the way it naturally would unfold, no deeper analysis was called for, but for anyone else such a simplistic approach will not do at all. ere are powerful reasons to seek a better, fuller, more plausible approach. One is the deepening sense among historians, even historians of doctrine, that controversies involving real people are never so simple, even though the people involved may be considered heroes or villains of the faith. People engaged intensely in any controversy that extends over a number of years, and that sways back and forth, inevitably struggle for victory, and that means engaging in plots and counter-plots, 2. e name given by Schwartz to collections of documents associated with councils, emphasizing their character as a distinct literary genre: e.g. Eduard Schwartz, Publizistische Sammlungen zum acacianischen Schisma (München, 1934).

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agendas hidden and otherwise, and strategies likewise devious or otherwise. ey leave behind, not a story of serene progress, but a tangle of plots and mysteries. If one is fortunate enough to have voluminous records, the complex story these records tell of how a controversy unfolds – so much more plausible than an imagined serene progress – will emerge, if one deigns actually to read the texts and tackle numerous interpretive cruxes. Our first point, then, in favour of undertaking a new analysis is that, as an explanation of how the Nestorian Controversy unfolded, the traditional interpretation is at best naïve and simplistic. Even church fathers did not behave like such model citizens. If we want to get at what was really going on in the controversy, what real people struggling with each other over doctrine were up to, we shall have to abandon the traditional story, and undertake instead the daunting task of following the controversy’s twists and turns. We shall have to read the texts, not be content with assuming that to have read, for instance, Chalcedon’s Statement of Faith is to have done all one need do to understand that council. A more complex and more realistic understanding is obviously needed. ere are, moreover, other excellent reasons for undertaking a more complex and realistic understanding at this particular moment in the development of the history of dogma. A lead reason has to do with the shiing approaches taken to Cyril of Alexandria in modern times, shiing approaches which inevitably brought with them shiing approaches to the Council of Chalcedon. at is to say, shis in thinking about Cyril and Chalcedon that the last fiy years witnessed have stirred up troubling questions that demand more convincing explanations as to how the Nestorian Controversy unfolded, Cyril being the chief protagonist/ antagonist in the drama, not just in life (he died in 444) but also in death, when his writings and his reputation continued to influence and challenge participants. ese questions are by no means trivial. In what follows we shall attempt to show that in the end they force us to see Cyril and Chalcedon in quite a new light, upsetting views that seemed incontrovertible. For the moment, let me cite by way of example the greatest and most tantalizing mystery of the many stirred up by the Nestorian Controversy. It concerns Cyril’s most persistent and clever antagonist throughout, eodoret of Cyrus. In 428 Cyril and eodoret were archenemies, and so they continued to be right up until Chalcedon. Yet at Chalcedon in 451 something totally unexpected happened: eodoret seemed to dramatically reverse himself. He did more than just say he now agreed to tolerate Cyril’s position; he claimed the mantle of Cyril for himself, that is, claimed implicitly that he was Cyrillian and therefore orthodox! On any reasonable understanding of the incident, eodoret’s

A FAMILIAR STORY OR A TANGLE OF MYSTERIES?

5

transformation into a soi-disant Cyrillian was contrary to all expectations, contrary to the logic of his position to date. A radical transformation like this does not happen without cause or causes. History feels compelled to explain how and why this extraordinary reversal took place, and what it meant, for it clearly signalled that something of great importance was going on. An attractive proposal some scholars made in the late twentieth century – they supposed that eodoret had gone through a time of thoughtful reconsideration and had arrived at the conclusion that Cyril was not so unorthodox aer all – flies in the face of all the evidence showing that eodoret continued, right up to Chalcedon, to vigorously oppose Cyril’s teaching, and that Cyrillians at Chalcedon continued to see eodoret as Cyril’s enemy. A more realistic explanation needed to be found, and it could be found only by genuine historical digging around in the evidence. Something momentous happened on the road to Chalcedon, but what? If something of this baffling complexity took place on the road to Chalcedon, we may well ask, surely other baffling things both great and small also took place, and the familiar story loses all credibility. Two things are obvious from these considerations, if we are to succeed in our task. In the first place, the very fact that someone like eodoret would feel compelled to justify his claim to orthodoxy by aligning himself with Cyril begs the question, how was it that Cyril enjoyed such a reputation for orthodoxy? In the second place, how is it that scholarship only now recognizes that this is an issue? Once the inadequacy of one simplistic interpretation is granted, a myriad of additional interpretive challenges do present themselves. If we are to end up with a more convincing narrative than has been offered so far, these must be faced. To give a sense of what those may be, we list a few of them. How did Cyril acquire such a reputation for orthodoxy that, by the end of our period, even foes like eodoret felt they had to claim his mantle for themselves and their faith, an extraordinary phenomenon, though one seldom if ever noticed by scholars? Did Cyril’s particular use of theological language figure in the controversy? Some present themselves in the records thrown up by the Nestorian Controversy proper. How did Cyril prevail in the propaganda campaign against Nestorius? Why, despite that fact, did Antiochenes in the long term see their fundamental teaching triumph at Chalcedon?3 Some challenges go to the heart 3. It seems to be impossible to find just the right word or words to describe the bishops, taught by eodore of Mopsuestia, who emerged as Cyril of Alexandria’s opposition and even enemies. To call them ‘Antiochenes’ is misleading, since they were only one grouping, chiefly to be found among the bishops of the sprawling patriarchate of

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of our argument. How did the controversy escalate, and what, if any, strategies were proposed for de-escalating it? What did the Emperor eodosius intend the Council of Ephesus to achieve, and how did Cyril and John of Antioch attempt to turn it to their own purposes? Was there ever an actual Council of Ephesus, or were there two councils, one under Cyril and one under John of Antioch, and what did it/they achieve, if it/ they achieved anything at all? Why was John of Antioch intentionally late in arriving at Ephesus? What gave him permission eventually to condemn Nestorius, a man whose cause he had championed fiercely? What did Cyril think he was agreeing to when he subscribed to the Union of 433? What was involved in the charge made by ‘Nestorians’ that the Union meant that Cyril had been converted to an Antiochene position? How did Cyril defend himself against this charge? Why did Cyril first introduce certain new christological formulae, then fall silent about them, and why did he then turn to attacking Diodore of Tarsus and eodore of Mopsuestia before falling silent also about them? What was the real purpose of the Home Synod of 448 presided over by Flavian of Constantinople, and how did it change the discourse? Did Eutyches really represent a new heresy – was there ever in fact such a thing as Eutychianism? Did the Emperor eodosius reverse his position when he called the Second Council of Ephesus? How had the official acts of the Home Synod been altered? How was the Council of Chalcedon structured? Are the accounts given at Chalcedon credible when they describe Dioscorus’ actions at Ephesus II as violent, and is Leo’s description of the council itself as a ‘brigandage’ credible?4 What purpose was served by rehabilitating the memory of Flavian and identifying him as a Cyrillian?5 What did Antioch. To call them a ‘school’ suggests a structural reality that did not obtain. In the end, where generally referring to this group, I have preferred words like ‘fellowship’ and ‘cadre’ and ‘shared enterprise’ to suggest the informal yet real community of these bishops, but in the end I am oen reduced to speaking of ‘the Antiochenes’ as a kind of familiar shorthand, while hoping that the reader recognizes how misleading such a term inevitably must be. Important and pioneering work on how the Antiochene network functioned has been done by Adam Schor, Theodoret’s People: Social Networks and Religious Conflicts in Late Roman Syria (Berkeley, 2011). 4. Pope Leo’s pejorative term for the council, Latrocinium (‘Brigandage’), is unfortunately in widespread use, as if it were the council’s proper name. We prefer the descriptive ‘e Second Council of Ephesus’ or ‘Ephesus II’. 5. ere is a problem with the term ‘Cyrillian’ too. As with the Antiochenes, there was no real school, but in Cyril’s case there was instead a broad and conservative tradition that a majority of churchmen, aided by a process we shall be devoting considerable space to, recognized in Cyril. ey were sure he represented orthodoxy in a reliable way. From 433 on, when Cyril had interpreted his subscription to the Union in terms of ‘two natures before the Incarnation/union’ and ‘one incarnate nature of the Word of God’ aer it, we for convenience use the word ‘Cyrillian’ or ‘new-formulae Cyrillian’ to identify

A FAMILIAR STORY OR A TANGLE OF MYSTERIES?

7

the first definition proposed at Chalcedon say, and why was it beloved by many, but discarded by the imperial officials’ fiat? What effect did the rehabilitation of eodoret and Ibas have? Was the legacy of Chalcedon the triumph of orthodoxy it has been considered to be by the tradition? What was made of Cyril and the claim to bear his mantle in the ongoing controversy between Chalcedonians and non-Chalcedonians of the sixth century? Interpretive cruxes abound, as can be seen. Following their trail will lead us through some bizarre and unfamiliar territory, but it will also make possible a much more complex, realistic, and convincing narrative of a very interesting episode of ecclesiastical and doctrinal history. By way of concluding this introduction before turning to a survey of Cyril scholarship, then to an explanation of Cyril’s remarkable status as an ikon of orthodoxy, I offer some disclaimers. As a historian I eschew all doctrinal loyalties: I shall describe what I see in the evidence, regardless of whether it was favoured by those I consider orthodox, or those I consider heretical. For purposes of understanding a text, I care not whether or not it appeals to me or repels me, whether it is hoary with age or brand new. Cyril, admittedly the chief protagonist of my narrative, is neither my hero nor my bête noire. He is, though, an interesting and an illuminating entrée into the material. More, he is at the heart of the controversy and therefore unavoidable. I make no moral judgements on any of the saints’ or father’s or heretics’ tendencies to use, or to avoid, various strategies, even devious ones, to achieve their ends. I am not part of any identifiable school of thought.

those who, while continuing to share the general impression of Cyril, in addition took up these formulae. is use of the word is misleading, since other groups, who did not espouse these formulae, still considered themselves Cyrillians, However, no better choice presents itself.

C 2

THE SHIFTING SANDS OF CYRILLIAN AND CHALCEDONIAN SCHOLARSHIP We have indicated above that we focus on Cyril of Alexandria because he was at the heart of the Nestorian Controversy throughout, and therefore provides a convenient and appropiate entrée into the whole affair. At every crucial step of the way along the road to Chalcedon – the struggle against Nestorius, Ephesus I, the Union of 433, the Home Synod of 448, the Second Council of Ephesus in 449, Chalcedon in 451 – Cyril played a central role, whether one thinks of him as participating directly, or as one whose influence spread far and wide, or as himself being, once dead, a church father. Always there was the assumption on the part of many that he stood in an unparalleled way for traditional orthodoxy, the ‘faith of the fathers’. To focus on him was therefore for us, we have said, a sound scholarly choice having nothing to do with our personal preferences and everything to do with sound scholarship. It must be admitted, all the same, that our work here grows out of our previous work on the postChalcedonian continuation of the Nestorian Controversy, obsessed at it was with Cyril. You might say that the present enterprise attempts to chart its Vorleben, just as our previous work attempted to chart Chalcedon’s Nachleben.1 But it is not as simple as that. Our previous work belonged to the scholarly world of its time – the late 60s and early 70s – as new questions were being asked, and a new interest in Cyril, especially in relation to the Council of Chalcedon, was emerging. ere was a satisfying sense that we were ‘restoring’ Cyril to the important place we saw as his by right, the place of chief father – so we thought – of Chalcedon’s Statement of Faith. Our Chalcedon was Cyrillian. With Cyril quite properly still in the spotlight, however, some of us are beginning to feel the need to re-assess the nature of his relationship with Chalcedon. As will be seen, there are good reasons to see Chalcedon’s Cyrillianism from a more radical and troubling angle. We may still see Cyril as in some sense the father of Chalcedon, but we have to ask which version of Cyril Chalcedon actually adopted. 1. Patrick T.R. Gray, The Defense of Chalcedon in the East (451–553) (Leiden, 1979).

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Our first task is to provide a more thorough picture of how scholarship about Cyril and Chalcedon has shied in such ways as to bring us to that point. T P-T-C V Let us begin once again with scholarship as propounded by traditional historians before changes took place in the Twentieth Century. For a millennium and a half Cyril, Patriarch of Alexandria (412–44), was assumed by the church both in the east and in the west to be one of the most important and celebrated of the church fathers because of his defence of orthodox christology against the heretic Nestorius, Archbishop of Constantinople. e Nestorian Controversy was taken to have been essentially a dispute over doctrine between these two men and the schools they represented. Nestorius erred in dividing Christ into two quite separate natures united only by a ‘conjunction’ of will and honour, the heresy ever aer known as Nestorianism. As a corollary, he denied to the Virgin Mary the title theotokos (God-bearer), proposing its replacement by christotokos (Christ-bearer). Cyril’s great triumph over him and his doctrine was won at the First Council of Ephesus (431), reverenced ever since as the ird Ecumenical Council. Cyril presided over it on behalf of Pope Celestine I, the senior patriarch. Its canons ruled that Christ was not to be divided, and that Mary was not to be denied the title of theotokos. Aer some negotiations, peace was consolidated for the churches, represented by the ‘Union’, a document Cyril and John of Antioch co-signed in 433.2 (ese elements of doctrine remain a permanent part of what is considered orthodox christology by the Roman-Catholic, Orthodox, and Anglican churches, for whom Cyril is a saint, and Ephesus I authoritative). Aer Cyril’s death in 444, however, a new heresy, taught by the heretic Eutyches, emerged. It made the opposite mistake to Nestorius’: it confused or mixed the human and divine elements of Christ into one. Because of its obsession with the oneness of Christ, this heresy was called Monophysitism, though its association with Eutyches meant that it was also called Eutychianism. Archbishop Flavian of Constantinople tried to suppress the heresy at a Home Synod of 448, but in 449 it seemed to triumph over orthodoxy at the Second Council of Ephesus, presided over by Eutyches’ ally, Dioscorus, Cyril’s successor as Patriarch of Alexandria. A new council was required, 2. To avoid confusion, we use the capitalized ‘Union’ throughout to name the document agreed between Cyril and John of Antioch in 433, and the lower-case ‘union’ for the christological union of divine and human.

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the Council of Chalcedon (451), to deal with it. ough he did not attend the council, Pope Leo I was its guiding spirit through his Tome, a vigorous critique of Eutyches. Leo maintained the traditional Roman language: Christ had two natures, but was one person. Chalcedon affirmed against Eutyches a real distinction between the divine and human in Christ by speaking in its statement of faith of Christ as being known ‘in two natures’, even as it confirmed Ephesus’ and Cyril’s emphasis on the oneness of Christ by affirming ‘one person and hypostasis’. ese, like the canons of Ephesus I, became recognized parts of orthodox christology. Together, Ephesus I guided by Cyril, and Chalcedon guided by Leo, laid the cornerstones of orthodox christology. According to this long-standing traditional interpretation, tending as it did to view things in simplistic black and white terms, it was clear with the benefit of hindsight who were the teachers to whom one could reliably turn – chiefly Cyril, Celestine, and Leo in our case – and which were the God-inspired and authoritative councils – Ephesus I, the Home Synod of 448, and Chalcedon. ese articulated orthodox doctrine. It could be assumed that, guided by the Holy Spirit, fathers and councils were in complete agreement. It was equally clear who were the heretics – Nestorius, Eutyches, Dioscorus – who would lead you astray, and which councils were, to use Pope Leo’s characterization of Ephesus II, ‘brigandages’. Orthodox teaching and orthodox formulations could reliably be found in key places: in Cyril’s Second Letter to Nestorius, in Leo’s Tome, and above all in Chalcedon’s Statement of Faith, for instance. First-hand heretical teaching and heretical formulations, having been rightly condemned, were not easily to be found, but their characterizations were ready to hand in the writings of their orthodox opponents, for instance Leo’s characterization of Eutyches.

T F P   T C e traditional view was bound to be challenged in the early twentieth century as scholars involved in progressive movements such as Modernism in the Roman Catholic Church, and humanism and biblical criticism in western churches in general, began to re-investigate the history of doctrine in the historical-critical spirit. e results that interest us were dramatic, especially when it came to Cyril: the accepted view of him as saint and authoritative father of the church was gradually replaced by a very different portrait. Progressive western scholars, who were oen attacked, even repressed or silenced, by conservatives in their churches

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and institutions, seem to have seen in Cyril’s attacks on, and condemnation of, the intelligent biblical scholars and theologians of the Antiochene school, especially Nestorius and the gentlemanly and theologicallyprogressive eodoret, the same ignorant persecution they felt they themselves were experiencing at the hands of their conservative critics and masters.3 ey tended to reduce the status of Ephesus I, recognizing in its emphasis on the unity of Christ the tendency towards diminishing the human side of Christ that they disliked in Cyril’s christology. For whatever reason, Cyril began to be seen by scholars as the villain, not the hero, of the piece. His character was maligned: he was assumed to have inherited the bullying tendencies and animus towards the rival see of Constantinople demonstrated by his uncle and predecessor eophilus in his persecution of John Chrysostom. Cyril’s native and asymmetrical christology, like his character, was criticized as massively one-sided: he grasped the oneness of Christ, certainly, and Ephesus I had its value in this regard, but he failed to take any serious notice of something his modern critics were intensely interested in, Christ’s full humanity, and most characteristically expressed his position in problematic language, especially when he used a favoured formula, ‘one incarnate nature’, that pointed in the direction of Monophysitism. Cyril’s inadequate language, therefore, unmistakably required the correction provided by his Antiochene rivals, men many of these modern historians admired. ey thus saw in the Union of 433’s allowance for two-natures language the needed correction to Cyril. While Cyril himself was de-fanged by his subscription to the Union and therefore to the doctrine of two natures in Christ, his malign influence, alas, survived. e danger his problematic language posed quickly became apparent aer his death when the monk Eutyches, taking that language literally, proposed Monophysitism (the belief in a single nature). His cause was taken up by Dioscorus, Cyril’s successor on the throne of Alexandria, with the result that a second council at Ephesus – styled by Leo a ‘Brigandage’ (Latrocinium) – condemned in the person of Flavian of Constantinople the doctrine of two natures and enshrined the Monophysite ‘one incarnate nature’. Eventually Chalcedon saved the day. In its statement of faith, it both met the Monophysite threat by condemning Eutyches, Dioscorus, their cohorts, and their heretical doctrines, 3. One thinks, naturally, of the suppression of Modernism in the Roman Catholic Church. A classic Anglican case is that of the Cambridge scholar, James F. Bethune-Baker, who introduced to an English-language audience a sympathetic Nestorius in his Nestorius and his Teaching. Tellingly, he was known as a ‘modern churchman’, and even published a collection of essays entitled The Way of Modernism (Cambridge, 1927). Other examples: Milton V. Anastos, ‘Nestorius Was Orthodox’, DOP 16 (1962), pp. 117–40; Aloys Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition I (Atlanta, 1975), pp. 447–72.

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and achieved a fully balanced view by retaining what was valid in Cyril’s one-Christ christology while giving equal house-room to the Antiochenes’ genuine and much-needed insights into the dual realities (natures) of the human and divine in Christ. us, while grudgingly acknowledging that Cyril’s contribution on behalf of the oneness of Christ was essential, this widely-held modern view negatively evaluated Cyril’s person, saw his christology as seriously lacking and susceptible to dangerous Monophysite development, and credited Chalcedon with correcting his flawed language, so susceptible as it was to heretical development by such as Eutyches and Dioscorus, while proposing a better and more consistent language that incorporated the insights of the admirable Antiochenes and the Romans.4 at consistent language used ‘person’ and ‘hypostasis’ to assert Christ’s unity, and ‘natures’ to assert his duality. It is certainly no surprise, then, that the scholars who subscribed to such a view, if they chose to look forward to the century that succeeded Chalcedon, tended to contrast what they styled ‘strict’ – and therefore correct – Chalcedonianism, with what they called ‘Neochalcedonian’ interpretations that saw Chalcedon as quite Cyrillian. To strict Chalcedonians that was a misguided and inauthentic version of Chalcedon, barely superior to the heretical interpretation of Monophysites.5 e first half of the twentieth century thus saw a radically new historical perspective on Cyril and the councils slowly begin to replace the traditional history; serious changes in how the intense developments of 428–51 were understood soon followed.6 4. An example is Grillmeier, Christ I: e early fih century saw ‘a logos-sarx christology of an archaic kind’ – Cyril’s – opposed to ‘a developed Logos-anthropos framework’, eodore of Mopsuestia’s (p. 414). Cyril’s failure to abandon ‘one incarnate nature’ crippled the ‘progressive trend of theology’ for some years (pp. 445 and 476). at impediment was removed when Cyril subscribed to the Union of 433, whose statement of faith was an Antiochene creed, the only real achievement of the Council of Ephesus. It deserved to be called the Creed of Ephesus. Cyril showed that he acknowledged its orthodoxy by defending it against Nestorians (p. 487). 5. This approach to the period was set out most forcibly by Charles Moeller, ‘Le chalcédonisme et le néo-chalcédonisme en Orient de 451 à la fin du VIe siècle’, in Aloys Grillmeier and Heinrich Bacht (eds.), Das Konzil von Chalkedon I (Würzburg, 1951), pp. 638–720. A first step in focusing on neochalcedonianism, indeed the first pronouncing of that rather pejorative name, had been by Joseph Lebon, Le monophysisme séverien (Louvain, 1909), followed at some distance by Marcel Richard, ‘Le Néo-chalcédonisme’, MSR 3 (1946), pp. 156– 61; a more sympathetic approach was taken by Aloys Grillmeier, ‘Der Neu-Chalkedonismus’, HJ 77 (1958), pp. 151–66, whose views on both Cyril and Neochalcedonianism evolved markedly over his long and illustrious career. 6. While the only arguments that matter for the present study are historical, I note in passing that construing Chalcedon and the lead-up to it in a way that devalued Cyril meant early twentieth-century scholars were able to claim that they found within Chalcedonian orthodoxy what a progressive and humanistic age newly valued, Christ’s full and independent humanity, rather than the God-inhabited human flesh Cyril taught, but which they found misguided.

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T L T C e one-sided and negative view of Cyril, and of Cyril’s contribution to the councils that was generally taken by modern historians of the first half of the twentieth century was challenged by some scholars in the second half of the century.7 To their way of thinking, what could be said with confidence about Cyril and his involvement with the Nestorian Controversy and influence on the progress towards Chalcedon went more like this: It was true that, from the beginning of the controversy with Nestorius in 428, Cyril resisted language about two natures in Christ, but that was partly because it seemed to deny the reality of the one Wordmade-flesh. At this point in his life he was indeed apt to favour instead misleading language from the Alexandrian tradition about ‘one nature’ and a ‘natural union’, especially a phrase he assumed (wrongly) came from Athanasius, ‘one incarnate nature of the Word of God’, even though that kind of language did not cohere with ‘two natures’. But Cyril, they said, meant nothing heterodox by this language – you simply had to be careful as to which of two meanings he was giving to the word ‘nature’. Sometimes he meant by ‘nature’ more or less what his Antiochene opponents meant by it, and what we usually mean by it to this day, as in the expression ‘human nature’. In this sense, he spoke of or implied two natures in Christ. When he talked about one nature of Christ, however, he was using ‘nature’ more or less in the sense later to be reserved for ‘hypostasis’, that is, he used it to mean concrete, individual subsistence. is interpretation exonerated Cyril from all responsibility for what people like Eutyches did aer his death with ‘one nature’. Moreover, during the nearly two years between his victory at Ephesus in 431 and his Union with John of Antioch in 433, it was supposed, Cyril matured, even becoming something of a statesman. In this way he came, of his own volition and aer serious reflection, to recognize the true insights of the Antiochene position on two natures, and this position he intentionally affirmed before the whole world in his Laetentur coeli letter of 433 by subscribing there to the Union statement sent to him by John of Antioch. He agreed, that is, that there were indeed two natures in Christ, and that each had its specific operations. In short, he now clearly chose to use ‘natures’ in much the same way as did the Antiochenes and Romans, leaving behind ‘one incarnate nature’. John of Antioch’s subscription to the same document 7. Among them Gray, Defense; Lionel R. Wickham, Cyril of Alexandria, Select Letters (Oxford, 1983); John A. McGuckin, St. Cyril of Alexandria: The Christological Controversy (Leiden–New York, 1994).

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was similarly interpreted. Moderate Antiochenes like John, it was said, had used the interval between Ephesus I and the signing of the Union to pursue their own more mature reflections, and had come for their part to recognize the correctness of Cyril’s insistence on the unity of Christ, and the propriety of calling Mary ‘bearer of God’ (theotokos). Peace was thus established in the church on the basis of a genuine meeting of minds, and it was a peace the ‘statesmanlike’ Cyril helped to maintain for the rest of his life by keeping the hotheads amongst his partisans (who continued to resist accommodation with the Antiochenes) in check. e road ahead from the Union appeared to lead directly and naturally to Chalcedon’s Statement of Faith. It was going to be possible, in the light of this narrative, to say that Cyril, in what he really meant to assert beneath the sometimesconfusing language he used, was always at heart Chalcedonian, and that Chalcedon was at heart Cyrillian. at would open the way to the central Neo-Chalcedonian argument offered against anti-Chalcedonian Monophysites in the sixth century: that even they, anti-Chalcedonians, actually agreed with Chalcedon despite their conviction to the contrary. Far from being thinly-disguised Nestorianism as they claimed, the teaching of Chalcedon was essentially, despite the disparity between their ways of expressing it, the very Cyrillian stance the anti-Chalcedonians claimed to be defending. From the Chalcedonian point of view, then and to this day among westerners, Monophysites8 were and are wrong-minded in their resistance to recognizing the genuine loyalty of Chalcedon to the orthodoxy of Cyril. e scholars of the later twentieth century recognized, of course, that the road from Cyril to Chalcedon was not pursued directly, as the affair of Eutyches and the Latrocinium interposed themselves between the ‘Union’ and Chalcedon. For them, understanding this detour, as it were, was easy: Cyril’s death in 444 removed his eirenic influence, allowing people like Eutyches and Dioscorus simply to ignore the mature position their hero Cyril had come to, and in a kind of reactionary superCyrillianism to ignore too his own subtle but crucial usage that featured two meanings of ‘nature’. Instead, they insisted on a literal reading of the formula ‘one incarnate nature of the Word of God’ (though Cyril had himself abandoned it). For them there were two natures only ‘before the union’, and one could thus properly say only that Christ was ‘out of two natures’, not ‘in two natures’. To say that he was ‘in two natures aer the 8. e word ‘Monophysite’ is used here because it has regularly been used to identify anti-Chalcedonians who refused to say that Christ had two natures. It is now tending to be replaced in some circles by ‘Miaphysite’, a term more acceptable to members of the relevant Oriental Orthodox churches.

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union’ would have been to divide him in two. When Eutyches took this position to ridiculous lengths, it fell to Flavian of Constantinople, his bishop, to take a stand and condemn him and his teaching at the Home Synod of 448. Flavian was at the same time, it was of course maintained, taking a stand in favour of what Cyril in his maturity really believed, that is, what he had subscribed to in the Union eleven years earlier, that the Christ who was one was also in two natures. Tragically, the intemperate Dioscorus took Eutyches’ side, and in the end these fervent but misguided partisans of Cyril nearly succeeded in imposing their reactionary and partial version of Cyrillian christology on the whole church in the east at the Latrocinium, considered by them to be the Second Ecumenical Council of Ephesus. e later-twentieth-century reading of the Council of Chalcedon did not limit Cyril’s role to the Nestorian Controversy up to 433, or to his lifetime (he died in 444), but accorded to him and what he stood for a significant and positive role at Chalcedon itself.9 is renewed positive assessment flowed directly from scholars’ conviction as to the balanced, mature, and Antiochene-accommodating two-natures position Cyril himself allegedly came to in 433. Chalcedon, on this interpretation, responded to Eutychian Monophysitism by re-asserting Cyril’s 433 position in clear and consistent terms; the council was essentially the successful Cyrillian attempt to undo the damage caused by super-Cyrillian hotheads, and to take to its satisfying conclusion the thinking set in motion by the mature Cyril of 433 and the Union. Chalcedon certainly reiterated Cyril’s and Ephesus I’s insistence that Christ was one, but rather than trying to rehabilitate the one-nature language that had proved so susceptible to heretical misunderstanding, it adapted another of Cyril’s favourite expressions, ‘union by hypostasis’, to assert that Christ was ‘acknowledged in one person and hypostasis’. Chalcedon thus took up what Cyril had actually intended in his teaching, but now in completely consistent language: Christ was one by person and hypostasis, two by natures. is Chalcedon was, these scholars maintained, genuinely true to Cyril – as long as one meant the mature Cyril of 433 who had supposedly abandoned ‘one nature’. If they had become fully aware – though it is doubtful many were – of the evidence in the acts that there existed a first statement of faith that proposed speaking of Christ as ‘out of two natures’ (one of the formulae favoured by Dioscorus, Eutyches, and the Latrocinium), and that the majority at Chalcedon vigorously supported it, they chose 9. Richard Price, ‘e Council of Chalcedon (451): a Narrative’, in Richard Price and Mary Whitby (eds.), Chalcedon in Context: Chuch Councils 400–700 (Liverpool, 2009), pp. 70–91.

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to see in the abandonment of that first statement, and in the eventual vote in favour of the final ‘in two natures’ statement of faith with which everyone is familiar, evidence of a genuine change of heart and mind on the part of the fathers of Chalcedon, helped along by reminders that the already-condemned Eutyches and Dioscorus had taught ‘out of two natures’ and ‘one incarnate nature’. e later-twentieth century approach to the Nestorian Controversy and Chalcedon went beyond negative caricature of Cyril to take him seriously: Cyril was the single most important protagonist of the Nestorian Controversy. His influence did not wane aer his death, or aer Chalcedon. Chalcedon had set the stage for, as was thought, the wrong-minded rejection of the council by super-Cyrillian ‘Monophysites’ carrying on the mistaken claim of Eutyches to represent the true Cyril, and rejecting Chalcedon as a disguised victory for Nestorianism. is in turn elicited the Neo-Chalcedonian response, arguing that Chalcedon was authentically Cyrillian. T T-F C e trends set by later twentieth-century scholarship have continued into the twenty-first century. ere has, in fact, been something of a growth industry in books taking a sympathetic view of Cyril, and in published collections of his works, both in the original Greek (and Syriac copies of Greek originals) and in modern-language translations.10 ere has been welcome serious work on Cyril’s power to persuade.11 Putting the lie to Schwartz’s claim that no one reads the acts of councils, the Council of Chalcedon, too, has received renewed attention, not coincidentally just as an invaluable three-volume translation of its acts into English was published.12 Scholars reading the complete acts, not just the 10. Useful collections of translated texts: John I. McEnerney, St. Cyril of Alexandria: Correspondence (FC 76–77; Washington, 1987); Norman Russell, Cyril of Alexandria (London, 2000). Very recent studies of Cyril’s christology: Hans van Loon, The Dyophysite Christology of Cyril of Alexandria (Leiden–Boston, 2009); Laurence J. Welch, Christology and Eucharist in the Early Thought of Cyril of Alexandria (San Francisco, 1994); Steven A. McKinion, Words, Imagery, and the Mystery of Christ: A Reconstruction of Cyril of Alexandria’s Christology (Boston–Leiden, 2000); Andrew Louth, ‘Why Did the Syrians Reject the Council?’, in Price and Whitby (eds.), Chalcedon in Context, pp. 107– 16. 11. e first serious address to the question of Cyril’s rhetoric is to be found in Susan Wessel, Cyril of Alexandria and the Nestorian Controversy: The Making of a Saint and a Heretic (New York, 2004). 12. Richard Price and Michael Gaddis (tr.), The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon (Liverpool, 2005), hereaer ACC.

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famous Definition adopted in the fih session, have at last begun to notice some remarkable facts: that Cyril is mentioned extremely frequently, far more oen than any other father; that what the bishops argued about was not points of theology, but what Cyril did or did not say, and who most truly represented his teaching; that notably Cyrillian elements are to be found in its statement of faith.13 e present study grows out of the evolved scholarship just described, but goes beyond it. It proposes that the time has come to further demythologize the Nestorian Controversy in the strictly historical mode we claim for ourselves in the opening section of this chapter. I am not alone in this. A similar approach is taken by such colleagues as Richard Price, working on the three councils, Ephesus I, Ephesus II, and Chalcedon, and George Bevan working on Nestorius and Chalcedon.14. Each of us has worked in minute and exhaustive detail on documents – particularly the acts of the three councils – that provide so much, yet so oen ignored, evidence as to what really went on between 428 and 451. As a result, each of us has concluded that Chalcedon represented in large part a victory for the Antiochenes, even though it was disguised as a victory for Cyril. Of course we also diverge. As each of us has pursued his particular inquiry into this enormously rich material, we have developed our own ‘takes’ on what it tells us. Unsurprisingly, my take focuses on Cyril and on his allies, critics, and enemies as they relate to him; as I look at the evidence, I cannot but conclude that the controversy we call ‘Nestorian’ really was all about Cyril. Bevan’s take focuses on the villain – or is he, secretly, the hero? – of the piece, Nestorius, whose way of thinking, though this was not publically acknowledged, was largely adopted by Chalcedon. Price’s take grows out of his intimate engagement with the acts of the three councils: he too recognizes how remarkable – and how very much in need of explanation – was Chalcedon’s decision to define orthodoxy in essentially Antiochene terms, for all the respect accorded Cyril by the token inclusion of Cyrillian language in the Statement. All of us have found ourselves, in the face of the documentary evidence, forced to confront the central and startling fact that common wisdom about the road to Chalcedon needs to be challenged radically. e road to Chalcedon did not come, as many of us had thought and as the common wisdom maintains, to an end with 13. e pioneering work was done by André de Halleux, ‘La définition christologique à Chalcédoine’, RThL 7 (1976), pp. 3–23, 155–70. 14. Price sets out his version of the road from the outbreak of the Nestorian Controversy to Chalcedon nicely, for instance: Price, ‘e Council of Chalcedon’, in Price and Whitby (eds.), Chalcedon in Context. George Bevan sets out his version in The New Judas: The Case of Nestorius in Ecclesiastical Politics, 428–451 CE (LAHR 13; Leuven, 2016).

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the self-conscious adoption of a document, Chalcedon’s Statement of Faith, that brought together the best of Cyril and the Antiochenes. It came to an end, rather, with a Statement that was essentially Antiochene, though disguised by Cyrillian elements. It was made possible by Chalcedon’s appropriation of Cyril’s authority for this Statement. I see Chalcedon, as I have said, as a disguised victory for the Antiochenes, but also as the failure of the actual one-nature position reached by Cyril – his mature position aer 433 – to prevail over the Antiochene position for the imperially-sanctioned church in the East. e one-nature position survived, rather, in the schismatic churches which rejected Chalcedon. For Bevan the climax is both climax and anti-climax, a ‘secret victory’ for Nestorius represented by the adoption of a statement that was in essence his, but a failure on his part to be restored by Chalcedon. If Bevan is correct, as he very well may be, in arguing that there was a well-developed plan to have Nestorius repent at Chalcedon and be welcomed back into the church, it may have been only Nestorius’ death that prevented his restoration.15 ings really were that complicated, contrary to popular assumptions. ere was no simple progression from limited and inadequate christological formulae to Chalcedon’s magisterial Statement, but a long-fought struggle between parties that swayed back and forth as each developed arguments and implemented strategies, then counter-arguments and counter-strategies, aimed at establishing its position as truest to ‘the faith of the church’. It was not by any means a foregone conclusion that Chalcedon would establish the Statement of Faith it did. Its Statement of Faith was in fact the surprising outcome of the convoluted controversy that preceded it and of the conjunction of factors that happened to result at that moment. Had even a slightly different conjunction of factors occurred – had eodosius decided to go hunting on a different day, for instance – the outcome would certainly have been different. Cyril would still have been the one whose mantle was claimed by the winning faction, but it seems most probable that the Cyril in question would have been, not the Cyril of the Union of 433, but the Cyril of the ‘one incarnate nature’ and ‘out of two natures’. at would not have been acceptable to Rome, and there would have been imponderable but certainly alarming repercussions. ere are other assumptions made by the traditional view that come under fire when our approach is taken: that what drove the controversy forward was on the human side the quest for a conceptually-clear christology, and on the divine side providential guidance in the right theological direction; that what the councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon argued 15. Bevan, The New Judas, pp. 323–30.

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about was how to formulate christological doctrine; that there was in 433 a genuine changing of minds on the part of Cyril on one hand, and Antiochene champions like eodoret on the other. Our analysis claims, rather, that what the Nestorian Controversy was really about was who was true to the faith of the fathers, and that aer Cyril’s death what that came down to – for reasons that will emerge – was who was true to the faith of Cyril. e essence of what drove events forward from 428 to 451 was the constantly-evolving struggle by each of the two factions to find arguments and to implement strategies – inevitably arousing counterarguments and counter-strategies – that could establish its version of the faith as the rightful claimant to the mantle of Cyril and therefore to represent the great orthodox tradition. e emperor, we claim, was a third party to this struggle, his essential agendum being to maintain or achieve peace between the warring parties.

C 3

CYRIL BEFORE NESTORIUS: ACQUIRING A REPUTATION FOR ORTHODOXY To devote a chapter to Cyril before Nestorius is, in our case, to admit a question not frequently asked, but one worthy of serious consideration: during the Nestorian Controversy Cyril enjoyed widespread support, and indeed was taken by many to be the authoritative exemplar of orthodoxy, but how did he come to possess that support and that reputation in the first place? To answer that question requires an investigation of the ‘faith of the fathers’ identified with his predecessor Athanasius, for Cyril’s status depended, we shall argue, to a large extent on his ability to appropriate it. We shall later add another factor that greatly strengthened Cyril’s hand, his talent for consolidating support by writing influential letters – but that revealed itself only during the conflict, and is therefore a subject for the next chapter. We cannot avoid dealing with another answer to the question about the sources of Cyril’s status: Cyril is assumed to have exercised authority by utilizing the successful bullying tactics of his uncle and predecessor eophilus. On this point, however, no clear evidence is to be found one way or the other. All that can be said with certainty is that Cyril had, in the network of his agents, particularly in Constantinople, the means to exercise authority. Cyril came to the Nestorian Controversy invested with impressive authority. What is not so well recognized is a serious vulnerability with which he also came to the controversy. It had to do with his practice as to theological language, which he used in an insouciant way. at insouciance, particularly concerning language about natures in respect of Christ, would one day play a central role in his controversy with the sophisticated circle of Antiochene bishops who rallied to Nestorius’ cause. Cyril was well positioned to win enormous support against, but not so well positioned to argue theology with, such sophisticated and theologically precise adversaries. Cyril came to the controversy, we shall argue, already invested with an authority Antiochene controversialists eventually found impregnable to direct attack. Attacking him directly – and once Cyril’s famous Third Letter to Nestorius was in play the Antiochene cadre certainly did attack him directly and fiercely, not so much for his attack on Nestorius as for the

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alleged Apollinarianism of his Twelve Chapters – was therefore not going to be effective in the long run. What later drove the controversy forward, in fact all the way to Chalcedon and beyond, was at its heart not the hopeless attempt to challenge Cyril’s authority directly, but rather the development by Antiochenes and the court of strategies that, accepting his authority’s inescapability, attempted instead to co-opt his authority on behalf of themselves and their doctrine. It is here, precisely, that Cyril’s insouciance about theological language le his legacy, aer his death, open to rival interpretations, even the claim that he had been converted to the Antiochene position. e issue of Cyril’s assumed authority, along with the issue of his language about natures, is rather more than a curiosity crying out to be explained; it is part and parcel of the new narrative we are proposing for understanding the Nestorian Controversy, a precondition of the strategy of claiming the mantle of Cyril. C   T   F To understand Cyril’s status as the second recognized church father – a father, that is, in the narrow sense of the word: an historical figure taken to be an utterly reliable standard of orthodoxy – we cannot escape addressing the case of Athanasius, the first of these fathers.1 We cannot escape Athanasius because it was largely by identification specifically with him and with the Creed of Nicaea that Cyril gained the status he enjoyed going into the Nestorian Controversy. Fortuitously, by Cyril’s time propagandists had created a heroic narrative, indeed a kind of mythology, around the figure of the father Athanasius and the Council of Nicaea, depicting them as champions suffering and fighting for orthodoxy. eir Athanasius was not quite the Athanasius of history. e Athanasius of history did not know what a church father in the sense assumed by Cyril was, let alone recognize himself as one. A ‘father’ for him would have been simply the revered ancestral founder of a church or monastery. Neither was he thought to be a ‘father’ by his contemporaries, who like Athanasius did not invest that word with 1. e creation of the ‘church father’ in this sense appears in various stages of development, in Marcel Richard, ‘Dyophysite Florilegia of the Fih and Sixth Centuries CE’, in Averil Cameron and Robert Hayland (eds.), tr. Abigail Jamet, Doctrinal Debate in the East Christian World (Farnham–Burlington, 2011), pp. 321–45; Patrick T.R. Gray, ‘“e Select Fathers”: Canonizing the Patristic Past’, StPatr 23 (1989), pp. 21–36; ‘Forgery as an Instrument of Progress: Reconstructing the eological Tradition in the Sixth Century’, BZ 81 (1988), pp. 284–89; ‘Covering the Nakedness of Noah: Reconstruction and Denial in the Age of Justinian’, Conformity and Non-Conformity in Byzantium, ed. Linda Garland = BF 24 (1997), pp. 193–206.

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the meaning it would have by the time of Cyril. It took decades for Athanasius to achieve that status. e Athanasius of history was not, in fact, the single-minded champion of Nicaea’s creed later ages took him to have been; far from it. Before 350 he never referred to that creed, or to the word homoousios.2 When he eventually did so, moreover, he did not treat them as sacrosanct. In fact, he and other Nicenes were quite capable of taking up different versions of the Nicene Creed even during the 360s as ways of ‘adapting the decisions of Nicaea to the needs of their own struggle against Arianism …’, a theologically-flexible practice that hardly fits the later picture of Athanasius the unwavering champion of unchanging truth.3 To his contemporaries, rather, Athanasius was just the combative, street-fighting, difficult Patriarch of Alexandria. Hilary considered him a ‘pugnacious leader’ in expounding the Creed of Nicaea far and wide; Basil considered him an ally in the Nicene cause, but seems to have been irritated by Athanasius’ meddling in Basil’s own affairs, and frustrated at his refusal to condemn Marcellus;4 Jerome mentions him, but it is not much more than a mention of basic biographical information, in De Viris Illustribus.5 It would take some work to turn this Athanasius into a church father, but the necessary work was forthcoming. Athanasius himself performed some of that necessary work: in his writings – through which later generations would ‘know’ him – he cast himself from the first as the embattled but unmistakable champion of orthodoxy. at is to say, he invented the germ of the heroic picture of ‘Athanasius against the world’ as part of his rhetoric aimed at recruiting allies against Arian opponents. Eventually, too, he identified himself completely with Nicaea and its creed. At the time, though, Nicaea was only one council among many that might have been accorded authoritative status, and its creed was likewise only one among many candidates for universal adhesion. It was, as it happens, Athanasius himself who was instrumental in bringing it to centre stage: as Barnes puts it, ‘it can plausibly be claimed that it was Athanasius who brought [the Nicene Creed] into prominence by sending his On the Council of Nicaea to the bishop of Rome in 352. He had devised a potent rallying-cry.’6 He had indeed. But that rallying-cry 2. Timothy. D. Barnes, Athanasius and Constantius (Cambridge, Mass., 1993), p. 112. 3. Maurice F. Wiles, ‘A Textual Variant in the Creed of the Council of Nicaea’, StPatr 26, pp. 428–33. 4. Basil of Caesarea, Letters 61, 66, 67, 69, 80, 82, in Yves Courtonne, ed. and tr., Saint Basile: Lettres (Paris, 1957). Letter 69, pp. 161–62, should certainly be read as ironic on the subject of Athanasius’ busy-ness. 5. Jerome, De Viris Illustribus 87, ed. Konstantinoy Siamake (essalonike, 1992), p. 244. 6. Barnes, Athanasius, p. 112.

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was not eventually to be just ‘Nicaea!’ It was to be ‘Nicaea and Athanasius!’ Nicaea, the great council, and Athanasius, its great champion, were woven together by Athanasius himself, the first strands of a single heroic narrative. ey were to become the protagonists in the master narrative in which the triumphant Nicene party recounted the story of its long struggle against Arianism.7 It was Gregory of Nazianzus who carried the process of what we might call Athanasius’ patrification forward, just as the Nicenes were consolidating their victory some time around 380. e Nicenes had triumphed over Arianism, certainly, but – as Gregory had experienced at first hand – they had also discovered one of their own champions, Apollinarius, to be unacceptably heterodox. It took a jarring struggle to excise Apollinarianism, made all the more difficult by the fact that Apollinarius had been a personal friend of Athanasius. Not only that, Apollinarians had laid claim to Athanasius and were publishing his writings with their own slant on them. ey even ascribed documents they forged to Athanasius; these were to play an important role in later controversy, as we shall see at the proper time. Non-Apollinarian Nicenes needed a rallying-cry; they needed a hero; and they needed to reclaim Athanasius for their side. As we have seen, Athanasius had made himself a hero of Nicene orthodoxy, identifying himself with the Creed of Nicaea. He had also by this time been dead just long enough for people to forget what the Athanasius of history had really been like, and to ‘remember’ only the storied great hero of the faith. Gregory was therefore free, in a kind of eulogy to Athanasius presumably delivered at a feast in the latter’s honour, to make of him a peacemaker, a reconciler, and a happy medium between practice and theory.8 More importantly, Gregory’s Athanasius is depicted as the representative of the simple faith – the ‘pious and ancient’ faith – of old-time religion, as contrasted with the ‘innovations’ and logic-chopping of Arianism, identified with which we can see in Gregory’s mind the innovations and logical arguments of Apollinarius.9 It is worth noting the subtle but significant shi that Gregory makes: Athanasius had presented himself as the champion and hero on behalf of the norm of orthodoxy represented by Nicaea; his Athanasius, Gregory says, is himself ‘the canon of orthodoxy’.10 Gregory’s Athanasius has, in other words, become a church father in 7. Arians, unsurprisingly, had their own century-long tradition of presenting Athanasius as a murderer and magician. See W.G. Rusch, ‘A la recherche de l’Athanase historique’, in C. Kannengiesser (ed.), Politique et théologie chez Athanase d’Alexandrie (Paris, 1974), pp. 173–74. 8. Gregory Nazianzus, Oration 21, SC 270, pp. 110–93. 9. Gregory, Oration 21, 12–13, SC 270, pp. 132–35. 10. Gregory, Oration 21, 37, SC 270, pp. 190–91.

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the full sense of that expression. Gregory and the other Cappadocians would eventually become fathers themselves in the eyes of the church, but Athanasius was the first to achieve that status, and would always in some sense take pride of place among fathers of the church. As such, Athanasius was the perfect person for Cyril to identify himself with if he was to be considered a paragon of orthodoxy.11 Parallel to the process by which Athanasius was transformed by forces in the realm of doctrinal controversy into a ‘father’ was the process by which he became a saint in the hagiographical realm. Socrates and other historians in the first part of the fih century, contemporaries of Cyril, show one way in which hagiography was making a rather different kind of Nicene hero out of Athanasius. eir Athanasius was an ecclesiastical child prodigy discovered by Bishop Alexander, himself a famous antiArian and Nicene, on the beach. He went on to win debates against Arian champions in the public contests preliminary to Nicaea. He was a master of escape, constantly eluding imperial forces, even hiding for six years with a young woman so seductively beautiful that no one bothered to look for him at her house, since no one could conceive of the famously chaste bishop putting himself in the way of such temptation! In a story particularly loved by orthodox audiences, Athanasius flummoxed his accusers, when he was tried for allegedly cutting off the hand of a certain Arsenius, by producing the putative victim patently possessed of two intact hands.12 11. To be fair, Athanasius was not the only champion against Arianism and for Nicaea to be turned into a church father, just the most universally recognized and influential, especially in the patriarchate of Alexandria, but also, as Gregory’s sermon shows, in influential Cappadocia. ere was at least one other narrative, predictably enough associated with Antioch, in which a different ‘father’ was celebrated as the great champion of Nicaea against Arianism, Diodore of Tarsus. Like Athanasius, he was a significant theologian, but one with rather different ways of expressing christology from Athanasius’ way, for Diodore was the teacher of eodore of Mopsuestia, and eodore in turn was Nestorius’ teacher. Diodore was thus the founder of what is oen called the ‘school of Antioch’. His approach to christology was inevitably interwoven with Antioch’s distinctive heroic narrative of the struggle against Arianism, and it of course brought with it a distinctive and far-from-Athanasian or Cyrillian interpretation of the Nicene Creed. Moreover, unlike Athanasius, Diodore had lived on to lead the fight against Apollinarianism, which meant that the Antiochene tradition of the fathers absorbed a key element of Diodore’ and his pupils’ critique of Apollinarianism, namely that its understanding of the christological union compromised fatally the full humanity of Christ by claiming the human was so absorbed in the divine that the Word replaced his human soul. It was probably inevitable that one day – as it turned out in the last years of Cyril’s life – battle would be joined over which father and which tradition was to be followed. e battle came to something of a conclusion in the condemnation of the Antiochene ‘ree Chapters’ by the Fih Ecumenical Council of 553. 12. e child prodigy: Socrates, Church History I, 15 (SC 477), pp. 170–73; Arsenius: Socrates, Church History I, 29 (SC 477), pp. 234–37, and Jerome, Apology against Rufinus III, 42 (SC 303), pp. 326–27, cf. Cyril, Apology to the Emperor Theodosius, ACO I, 1, 3, p. 89.

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One should not underestimate the power of such narratives, particularly as they all focus on Athanasius’ role in defending Nicene orthodoxy and opposing or escaping Arian heretics, to enhance his status in the popular imagination as the church father. By the same token, the status of anyone who managed to identify himself with Athanasius – as Cyril did – stood all the better chance of being considered indisputably orthodox. Hagiography, at least in Alexandrian circles, also elevated Athanasius’ status by claiming for him a special kind of unbloody martyrdom. Here is how Alypius, in a letter to Cyril read in the final session of the First Council of Ephesus, described him: [T]he blessed Athanasius, aer many false denunciations which arose against him from the heretics, proved them stale and useless. He endured living in a foreign land because of the order of exile brought against him by those who were then in power. As much as their course mouths strove to weave their lying accusations, so much the purer and more illustrious did he show himself by his long-suffering, outshining their successes. While weaving for himself the crown of martyrdom by these contests, he proved the consubstantiality and trod underfoot the evil teaching of Arius and upheld orthodoxy and raised alo the holy throne of the evangelist, Mark.13

In the west, John Cassian, shortly thereaer, made a similar claim: Let us see what Athanasius – a priest of the city of Alexandria, and an outstanding example of perseverance and courage, whom the storm of heretical persecution did not terrify but rather proved, and who, having his life always like a shining mirror, has attained the merit of a martyr almost more than he has achieved the rank of a confessor – perceived concerning the Lord Jesus Christ … 14

What is particularly telling about that passage is the unvoiced ‘therefore’: because Athanasius was a white martyr for orthodoxy, therefore what he ‘perceived concerning the Lord Jesus Christ’ is authoritative. We shall see that very argument repeated, in slightly different form, with reference to Cyril himself. e status Cyril would come to enjoy obviously had a good deal to do with his successful self-identification with Athanasius and Nicaea, but it also had a good deal to do with his self-identification with monks, notably those of the Egyptian desert, and their simple faith. Here too Athanasius had shown the way. He had allied himself with the desert monks of Egypt as part of his campaign for Nicaea.15 He had also associated himself with 13. Alypius, Letter to Cyril of Alexandria, ACO I, I, 3, p. 75, FC 76, pp. 117–18. 14. John Cassian, On the Incarnation, Seven Books against Nestorius, CSEL 17, 1, p. 387. 15. See David Brakke, Athanasius and the Politics of Asceticism (Oxford, 1995).

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monks and the monastic ideal both by publishing his Life of Antony and by claiming, in the introduction, to have spent time personally with Antony. Enlisting the unlettered monk Antony against the Arians by giving him a speech that squelched Arian representatives, Athanasius at once connected Antony’s holiness as a monk, and his simplicity, with Nicene orthodoxy. Since the Life was intentionally a model for monks, Athanasius was identifying himself as a founding teacher of monastics, an ancillary theme for Gregory of Nazianzus in the oration discussed above: Athanasius was, he said, for ‘virgins their guide’ and for ‘members of communities their lawgiver.’16 He thus established an ideology about the relation of the Patriarch of Alexandria to the monks: the Patriarch was their friend, their teacher, and the ultimate authority over them. Without claiming more weight than it deserves, one may legitimately point out that there is some evidence of later monastic traditions going further in building up Athanasius’ reputation. A story from the Apophthegmata patrum featuring the hermit Sisoès the Great, who died in 429, had Arians arrive at Antony’s mountain and begin to bad-mouth Nicene orthodoxy to Sisoès and his disciples. Sisoès made no direct answer, but quietly asked one of his disciples to bring ‘the book of holy Athanasius’, which he then was asked to read from. ‘And when [the Arians] kept silence, their heresy was unmasked, and they returned in peace.’17 In some monastic literature Athanasius’ words even took on a talismanic quality, were taken to be directly and almost magically effective against heresy. In a later story, this time focusing on Cosmas the Eunuch, the narrator describes having approached Cosmas for help in interpreting a difficult passage in the New Testament. As they were talking, he found a helpful text of Athanasius, whereupon Cosmas said to him, ‘When you come across a saying of Athanasius the Great, if you have no paper, write it on your clothing.’ ‘So great’, the narrator comments, ‘was the appetite of this father for our holy fathers and teachers.’18 Pithy sayings of Athanasius had taken on power in their own right, quite apart from any context: what mattered was the single phrase or sentence you could write on your shirt!19 (It is not surprising that, at about the same time, florilegia – that similarly accorded 16. Gregory, Oration 21, 10, pp. 130–31. 17. Les sentences des pères du désert. Collection alphabétique, tr. Lucien Regnault (Sablé-sur-Sarth, 1981), p. 290. 18. John Moschos, The Spiritual Meadow 40, tr. John Wortley (Kalamazoo, 1992), p. 32. 19. One is reminded of the seventh- or eighth-century Coptic monk who, carrying on this tradition, covered the walls of his cell with the complete text of the Nicene Creed, surely a prize example of the talismanic use of a patristic text. For this example see William H.C.C. Frend, The Rise of the Monophysite Movement (Cambridge, 1972), p. 138.

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authority to snippets of text from the fathers isolated from their original contexts – were first coming into use as weapons in theological dispute. Whether they were current among the monks, or assembled in florilegia, it was assumed you could rely completely on the authoritative texts of Athanasius.) N   H   O F By the time of Cyril, the narrative connecting Athanasius, Nicaea, and the monks of the Egyptian desert was thus well established. A powerful matrix of assumptions would naturally come into play when, in 428, Cyril engaged with novel and would-be-sophisticated theological arguments taken up by some of his own monks under the influence of ideas being taught in Constantinople by Nestorius’ protégés. In this matrix the ‘tradition of the fathers’, the ‘simple faith of monks’, the heroic narrative about Athanasius and Nicaea, and the association in faith of monks with the Patriarch of Alexandria, came together. e very least we can say is that, had he not been able to call upon this combination of forces, Cyril would inevitably have had a much weaker hand to play against Nestorius, and there would probably – we can only suppose what might have happened, of course – have been different outcomes to the Nestorian Controversy, and thus to the history of doctrine. But Cyril did manage to participate in Athanasius’ status by identifying himself completely with his hero. His reminder, made at the height of the Nestorian Controversy, that he had been ‘nurtured at the hands of an orthodox father’ – pretty plainly, we would say, referring to Athanasius – reveals his central claim: he made no contribution of his own to orthodoxy; his orthodoxy was absorbed from Athanasius.20 at claim is, if anything, understated, as our earliest relevant evidence, dating to the years of his patriarchate before the onset of the Nestorian Controversy, shows. e evidence is found in his Thesaurus, a work on the Trinity. He was not at all interested in contributing to any development or clarification of the doctrine, just in preserving exactly what Athanasius taught, or at least what he thought Athanasius taught. We know this because of one remarkable fact: a huge portion of the Thesaurus simply reproduces word for word the third book of Athanasius’ Contra Arianos.21 At a later date he made the same claim of non-innovation for his soteriology: ‘e view 20. e claim: Cyril, Letter to Acacius of Beroea, ACO I, I, 7, p. 149, tr. FC 76, p. 132. 21. Russell’s comments favouring the identification Cyril’s nurturing father as Athanasius are apt: Russell, Cyril, p. 5, n. 18.

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we take of our Saviour’s dispensation is the view of the holy fathers who preceded us. By reading their works we equip our own mind to follow them and to introduce no innovation into orthodoxy.’22 For Cyril, on this evidence, to be orthodox was to repeat what he took to be a definable and consistent tradition, ‘the tradition of the fathers’. C  C ere is another, more suspect way in which the past is oen thought to have shaped Cyril and the Nestorian Controversy. It is based on the irresponsible yet widespread assumption, much favoured by the hostile-toCyril historians of the first half of the twentieth century, and still current, that Cyril, as eophilus’ heir, shared in his uncle’s animus towards Constantinople, and perpetuated his uncle’s policies and brutal ways of operating. It is just possible, it might be said, that the ‘hands of an orthodox father’ that nurtured him were eophilus’, not in the end Athanasius’. Cyril’s dispute with Nestorius, this view maintains, must have been his way of perpetuating the vendetta eophilus had waged against John Chrysostom. His success in the Nestorian Controversy relied, then, in large part on the quasi-authority of a successful bully. e supposed evidence this view adduces is, however, worthless, and any conclusions drawn from it are equally so. Consider. It is true that we first hear of Cyril in 403 when he accompanied his uncle to the Synod of the Oak which deposed John Chrysostom.23 eophilus’ actions there may or may not show him to have been overbearing, brutal, and motivated entirely by jealousy over the rise of Constantinople at the expense of Alexandria. at is not our question, though it probably deserves more serious thought than it has received. e question for us is this: how many, if any, of these qualities are we justified in saying Cyril shared with eophilus? How many of them can we say he brought with him when he succeeded his uncle as patriarch in 412? How many of them can we say affected how he acted during the Nestorian Controversy? Certainly John Chrysostom’s name remained off the diptychs of Alexandria until 417 at the earliest, five years aer Cyril’s enthronement – but it was Cyril who then restored it!24 Does this mean that Cyril shared eophilus’ attitude towards John and towards Constantinople, or that he was a cautious but determined reformer of his uncle’s policy? We cannot tell. 22. Cyril, First Letter to Succensus 1, Wickham, pp. 70–71. 23. Socrates, Church History VI, 15. 24. Cyril of Alexandria, Letter to Atticus of Constantinople 4–6, PG 77, 348–52.

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It was Origenism that eophilus charged Chrysostom with, but there is not a trace anywhere in Cyril of the kind of knowledge about, or concern for, Origenism that would justify our concluding that he likewise was obsessed by that issue. If anything, would this not seem to suggest that Cyril’s theological world was quite different from his uncle’s? eophilus was remembered for overseeing the destruction of the Serapeum at Alexandria in 391, and for ‘cleansing’ and turning to Christian use other centres of pagan worship, actions that might be thought to show a tendency towards violence. Under Cyril we admittedly hear of continuing persecutions of pagans, Jews, and Novatians, and some say these show that Cyril carried on eophilus’ vicious ways.25 Yet how informative is this similarity? Was eophilus unusual in this respect, and was Cyril’s behaviour likewise, and therefore derivatively, unusual for the time? It seems not. Such behaviour seems in fact to have been commonplace, even normative, and if so, how can anything particular about Cyril be read out of it? e correct conclusion a historian ought to reach from these considerations is that nothing can be known one way or the other as to Cyril’s supposed likeness to eophilus from the scant evidence we have for his early years. We are le, not with any real evidence at all, but with only a hostile writer’s rhetorical charge, made in the heat of 431 and in the confusion of rival councils at Ephesus: ‘He is sister’s son to eophilus, and in disposition takes aer him. Just as the uncle openly expended his fury against the inspired and beloved John, so also the nephew seeks to set himself up in his turn …’26 ose words have certainly been accepted as statements of fact far too oen. Isidore, the author of the passage, is attempting to make Cyril guilty on the basis of association: because he is the hated eophilus’ nephew, therefore he is guilty of perpetuating eophilus’ attitudes. Isidore’s was, perhaps, effective rhetoric, but in fact no responsible historical conclusions about Cyril can be drawn on the basis of what is nothing more than an unsupported slur. is is not to say that what Cyril thought or felt about the see of Constantinople, what aspirations he had for the see of Alexandria, what he thought of his uncle and his uncle’s actions, what motivations nourished in early years while serving under his uncle may have led him to take the actions he did in later years, would not concern us – if there were any evidence worthy of consideration. ere is none. We know, when it 25. eodoret, History of the Church V, 22, ed. J.C. Hinrichs, Theodoret: Kirchengeschichte (Leipzig, 1911), pp. 3–6. 26. Isidore of Pelusium, Ep. I, 310, ed. and tr. René Aigrain, Quarante-neuf lettres de Saint Isidore de Péluse (Paris, 1911), p. 22.

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comes down to it, very little about Cyril in this earliest phase of his career, and nothing at all for certain about his motivations and attitudes, including those having to do with the see of Constantinople. We shall do well to keep this in mind as we approach the real evidence we do have for the next and first really knowable phase of his career, the early years of his patriarchate. We need to be cautious as to his attitudes and motivations. We shall certainly stand a better chance of understanding him accurately if we do so. What we do know about Cyril in relation to the see of Constantinople is that he could not help but be intensely interested in what went on in the capital. Like other patriarchs and metropolitans, and indeed like some important monasteries, the Alexandrian patriarchy maintained apocrisiaries (representatives) there to protect the patriarchy’s interests, to lobby officials and even the emperor on her behalf, and to keep her informed of events and policies that affected her. If we were ever in doubt as to whether or not Cyril was willing to employ the power of this system, let that doubt be put to rest. Very early in the Nestorian controversy we have a window into the very active role these apocrisiaries played in the campaign against Nestorius, and how well-informed they kept Alexandria: in a letter to them, Cyril reveals that he had intimate knowledge from them of what was going on in Constantinople, especially in the pamphlet war between his supporters and Nestorius’, that they had prepared a petition to present to the emperor on his behalf, and that they were awaiting his decision on the timing.27 eophilus’ nephew or not, Cyril was well equipped to do informed battle on Alexandria’s behalf if he felt she or the faith of her church was threatened. He was not just well-equipped, as the sequel showed; he was willing to take the fight to the enemy on the latter’s turf, and not afraid to plead his cause with the emperor on the same turf. He was willing, even, to disobey direct imperial orders. I F P To say that Cyril was determined to stand simply for the faith of the fathers without a hint of innovation is not to say that it ever was actually possible for anyone to say and intend exactly what the fathers had said and meant. Nor is it to say he actually had no faith position identifiable as his own, or that he was in any way vague about the central points of his faith in those early days. Far from it. Crucial to his faith was a point 27. Cyril, Letter of Cyril to his Apocrisiarii at Constantinople, ACO I, I, 1, pp. 110–12, tr. FC 76, pp. 55–59.

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established by Athanasius and Nicaea against the Arians. e latter, looking at the gospel instances in which Jesus Christ showed ignorance, was subject to suffering, and died, concluded that he could not therefore be God. He had to be a creature, God being, as the consensus of the time held, by definition incapable of ignorance, suffering, or death. He was, in a word, impassible. Athanasius insisted, on the contrary, turning to John’s gospel and texts such as ‘I and the father are one’, that the Word Incarnate was fully and completely divine, even though that meant that the divine Word was the subject in some sense of ignorance, suffering, and death. e characteristic way of expressing this (a way that Cyril shared), while avoiding saying outright that the divine was passible, was to say that one and the same divine Word worked miracles ‘in his divinity’, and suffered etc. ‘in his flesh’. Qua divine, he was impassible; qua incarnate, he suffered. In a passage from Athanasius’ Against the Arians which Cyril, significantly, cites during the Nestorian Controversy in defence of using the title theotokos for Mary, Athanasius offers in capsule form his interconnected teaching: erefore the mark and characteristic of Holy Scripture, as we have oen said, is that it contains a twofold declaration concerning the Savior, that he both always was God and that he is the Son, being the Word and brightness and wisdom of the Father, and that aerwards, for our sake, by taking flesh from the Virgin Mary, the theotokos, he became man.28

Related to this was an articulation of the incarnation that took the Nicene Creed’s language, most significantly ‘being enfleshed’ – in Greek a single word capable of more than one interpretation; the English ‘became flesh’ gives substance to something, becoming, that is not necessarily intended by the text – as stating that the Word really became flesh in some ineffable way. ese were doctrinal stances deeply held by Cyril, as would become obvious in the succeeding controversy. It would not escape his eventual Antiochene critics that the way of defining the faith that he embraced depended on taking ‘being enfleshed’ in an arbitrary, literal, and predictable way; it was not the only way the word was taken at the time.29 Why did these doctrinal stances mean so much to him? Why was he willing to go to the battlements for them? e answer lies in his belief, which he based presumably both on his own experience of participation in 28. Athanasius, Against the Arians III, 29, PG 26, 385–88. 29. So the anonymous writer of Eranistes would have his critical voice say something like ‘Oh yes, here comes that old topos again …’, Gerard H. Ettlinger, Theodoret of Cyrus: Eranistes, Dialogue I (Washington, 2003), p. 79.

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eucharist and on his Egyptian community’s shared high view of eucharist, that the flesh of Christ was life-giving, that is, that in the eucharist divine life-giving power was communicated, to saving effect.30 Consider the following passage from Cyril’s pre-controversy commentary on John 6, particularly verse 51:36 He is life by nature, insofar as He is begotten from a living Father, yet His holy body is in no way less life-giving, since it has in some way been brought together and ineffably united with the Word who sustains all things in life. is is why it is called His [body], and this is how He is understood to be one with it. He is indivisible aer the Incarnation, except insofar as it is a matter of knowing that the Word that proceeds from God the Father and the temple from the Virgin are not the same by nature. e body is not consubstantial with the Word from God, but there exists one thing by virtue of their coming together and their incomprehensible agreement. Since the flesh of the Saviour became life-giving, seeing that it is united to that which is life by nature – clearly to the Word from God – whenever we taste of it, then we have life in us, since we are together with it, just as it is together with the indwelling Word.31

In order for the divine life-giving power to be received by mere humans in the eucharistic flesh of Christ, the divine Word had to be so closely united with his flesh that the divine power could be transferred to and through his personal life-giving flesh to his eucharistic body and thence to the recipient. In some real, if ineffable, sense, then, the Word had to become flesh if there was to be salvation for humankind through the sacrament. If there were ever any doubt about how deeply Cyril felt about this doctrinal understanding of eucharist compared with what he understood to be Nestorius’ doctrine of the eucharist, it is put to rest by reflection upon what Cyril, in his fierce Third Letter to Nestorius, insisted Nestorius had to accept – as opposed to what Cyril caricatures as Nestorius’ own eucharistic understanding – if he was to satisfy his and Celestine’s ultimatum: Proclaiming the death in respect of the flesh of the only-begotten Son of God, that is, Jesus Christ, and acknowledging his return to life from the dead and ascension into heaven, we perform in the churches the bloodless cult, approach the sacramental gis, and are sanctified by our participation in the holy flesh and the precious blood of Christ the Saviour of us all, not by receiving common flesh (God forbid!) nor that of a man sanctified and conjoined to the Word according to oneness of dignity or by enjoying 30. e ground-breaking work on this: H. Chadwick, ‘Eucharist and Christology in the Nestorian Controversy’, JThS ns 2 (1951), 145–64. 31. Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on the Gospel of John IV, 2, ed. Philip E. Pusey, (Oxford, 1872), pp. 529–30.

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divine indwelling but as the truly life-giving flesh belonging to the Word himself. For being life by nature as God, when he became one with his own flesh, he made it life-giving …32

e powerful eucharistic understanding that mattered so much to Cyril was a matter of (eternal) life and death, but that understanding was possible only if one shared Cyril’s understanding of Christ as the single subject of all his actions, the Word ineffably united to his humanity. To Cyril, Nestorius’ understanding of both christology and eucharist was, quite literally, damned nonsense. Antiochenes such as Nestorius saw things quite differently. eir origins, too, lay in the struggle against Arianism and its claim that, it being blasphemous to ascribe sufferings to God, scripture showed Christ not to be divine, but a creature liable to suffering, ignorance, and death. Unlike Athanasius, so far as we can tell from information about the Nicene hero hailed by Antiochenes, Diodore of Tarsus, and about the great Antiochene teacher eodore of Mopsuestia, their quite different riposte to Arians was to argue that the latter had mistakenly assumed there was only one subject of all the activities recorded in the gospels. In fact, they said, there were two elements to Christ, a divine one, and a human one, and sufferings etc. belonged to the human element, leaving the divine element to be completely God, free of suffering. One way in which they asserted this understanding of Christ was to say that he had two distinct natures, one human and one divine, and that each performed the operations appropriate to it. ‘Nature’ was thus, for them, a word with a precise and technical meaning, an insistence that was quite the opposite of Cyril’s insouciance about this and other words. ey satisfied the obvious fact that the gospels pictured a single Christ by arguing that the two natures co-operated, or were ‘conjoined’, presenting a united front or mask (prosopon) to the world. From an Antiochene point of view, Cyril’s insistence that the divine Word was the subject not only of divine operations but also of human ones such as suffering, compromised fatally the impassibility of God, precisely what the Antiochene tradition had fought so hard 32. Cyril, Third Letter to Nestorius 7, ACO I, I, 1, pp. 25–28. Translation here and in much of the following kindly provided by Richard Price. e same sense of the interconnectedness of christology and eucharistic theology is to be found in the Memorandum of the Holy Bishop Cyril to Posidonius, ACO I, I, 7, pp. 171–72: ‘We too acknowledge that the Word of God is both immortal and life itself, but we believe that he became flesh, that is, that, aer uniting to himself flesh with a rational soul, he suffered in the flesh … and when his body suffered, he himself is said to have suffered … But [Nestorius] … says that the sufferings were a man’s and the resurrection a man’s, and that in the [eucharistic] mysteries the body that is offered up is that of a man, while we believe it is the flesh of the Word, which has the power to give life, because it has become the flesh and blood of the Word, who bestows life on all things.’

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to protect against Arianism. e great supplementary work Antiochenes undertook – as Nestorius exemplifies in what we have of his writings – was to go through the gospel texts in minute detail, decoding what were taken to be the writers’ signals as to which set of words belonged to which of the natures, and which belonged to both. It must be added that Antiochenes had long felt a particular antipathy towards the thinking of Apollinarius on this topic. Apollinarius, a friend and ally of Athanasius in the campaign against Arians, thought along much the same lines as did Athanasius, but with one crucial difference: for him – basing his thinking on the universally acknowledged picture at the time of human nature as the combination of a soul with its body – the Word took the place of a human mind in Christ. As such, the Word could be the subject of Christ’s suffering, just as a human soul was the subject of the suffering of its body. And, just as in the case of the bodysoul union in a human being, the Word-body combination envisaged by Apollinarius could be considered to comprise one nature. What was not clear was whether the Word so united to a body could preserve its divine impassibility; Antiochenes were bound to question that claim if it were made. To make matters worse, disciples of Apollinarius circulated his writings aer his death, and ascribed some of them to Athanasius. One of these pseudo-Athanasian, but actually Apollinarian, forgeries, ‘one incarnate nature of the Word of God’, was eventually taken up by Cyril as being authentic, and then by some of his successors.33 It was clear to Antiochenes that the effect of this development, along with Cyril’s characteristic insouciance about words to which they ascribed precise meanings, was to convince Antiochenes that Cyril was a closet Apollinarian for whom the divine Word was susceptible of suffering. Moreover, the Word in Apollinarius’ scheme was not united to a fully psychosomatic and human Christ, only to a soul-less body. e Word incarnate was, on this reading, neither fully divine nor fully human, but a strange kind of hybrid. Anyone who sounded Apollinarian – by opposing two natures, by reading Nicaea as having said that the Word literally became flesh, by asserting one nature, or by construing the divine-human combination in Christ on the analogy of the body-soul human paradigm – was bound to be suspected of Apollinarianism by any Antiochene. Cyril would, at one time or another in his career, implicate himself with every one of these markers. It would never be enough to repeat, with Cyril, a pro forma 33. It may be worth repeating a point made above: that ‘one incarnate nature’ was not an expression favoured by Cyril before 433. When Antiochenes charged him with saying ‘one nature’, they were not basing their charge on his actual practice, but drawing what they took to be the inescapable implication of what he did say.

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denial of Apollinarianism by adding that the Word was united to a body ‘possessing a human soul’. He would always be held under suspicion by the Antiochene camp. ere were just too many things that signaled Apollinarian tendencies. Apollinarius was the bogeyman who haunted the Nestorian controversy. e two approaches to christology of Cyril and of an Antiochene like Nestorius, were plainly incompatible. Cyril’s approach required that the Word be the subject of both operations, so that the body of Christ received in the eucharist he and his community celebrated might be truly and divinely life-giving, a point on which he was equally inflexible. e Antiochene approach required that these same operations be effected by two different natures as appropriate, so that the divine Word might be impassible, and thus fully and truly God, a point on which Antiochenes were inflexible. ey would worship nothing less than the impassible God. e stage was set for confrontation.

T I L  C Any discussion of the Nestorian Controversy must sooner or later address the question of Cyril’s language about Christ. As regards Cyril as we have seen him so far – a deeply conservative churchman who claimed essentially to maintain the tradition of the fathers as that tradition had come down to him without innovation or alteration – precisely defined language is the last thing we would expect, at least until his confrontation with people like his Antiochene adversaries, people who did make a big thing of precise definition, led him eventually to try to respond in kind.34 (Just when that happened will be a subject of great importance to us later.35) e free and insouciant use of christological language we saw in the passage from his Commentary on John cited above, not to say his controversial letters, proves the point. Yet it is sometimes claimed that what was being argued even in the Thesaurus was which precise and technical meanings of words and expressions one should use. is highly speculative view adduces no convincing evidence. It is not just that the Thesaurus patently is meant to address real issues from the fourth-century Arian Controversy, and only those issues. It is that, if we wished to prove that Cyril is, even indirectly, attacking Antiochene usage here, we would 34. Nestorius’ sense of superiority because of his precision in language about Christ is evident in all of his letters, including the first. 35. See chapter 9.

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have to produce evidence that he intends to target the distinctive teaching of members of the Antiochene circle. e mere fact that he occasionally employs terms whose precise meanings would one day become important in the controversy demonstrates nothing. What we would need to find in Cyril is what we do not in fact find, some address to the ‘precise’ assigning of biblical titles for Christ that Nestorius, for instance, believed demonstrated the superiority of his position.36 We find no such thing. Moreover, though the argument remains to be made in the appropriate place, we have convincing evidence from 433 that Cyril had not until then been fully aware of a central topos of Antiochene christology, the implications Antiochenes drew of recognizing two distinct natures of Christ – natures as they understood the meaning of the term. So unaware was he of this fact that he was caught by surprise.37 It follows that, before 433, he could hardly have been so aware of Antiochenes’ thinking that he was able to engage in a sophisticated and disguised attack on them in the Thesaurus. As we are about to see, his language about Christ before 433 was actually anything but precise, which is not to say that it was not deeply felt and deeply serious. Consider the christological language we meet in the Cyril of the years before the Nestorian Controversy broke out, as illustrated in our key passage from his Commentary on John cited above. e passage’s point is not to define anything, let alone to define it precisely, but to proclaim to its readers that the union of the human with the life-giving divine Word in Christ has opened to them, through the eucharist, saving participation in the divine life. Incidentally, though, it offers examples of Cyril’s fluid use of language. Note how he speaks at the same time both of the divine-human duality in Christ, saying that ‘the Word that proceeds from God the Father and the temple from the Virgin are not the same by nature: the body is not consubstantial with the Word from God …’, and of Christ’s unity, saying that ‘there exists one thing by virtue of their coming together …’ We know that Nestorius attempted to say very precise things about the incarnation by distinguishing the ‘temple’ (the man) from the one who dwells in the temple (the divine Word), but this should not lead us to ascribe anything like that to Cyril when he speaks of the ‘temple’. Here we observe, too, something of great importance for our whole understanding of the later controversy: for the pre-428 Cyril we meet here, ‘nature’ is evidently a perfectly natural, everyday word to use to point to the ‘twofold’ human/divine realities of the incarnate Word proclaimed by 36. Nestorius, Second Letter to Cyril 3, ACO I, I, 1, p. 29. 37. On the Nestorians’ claims see chapter 9.

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Athanasius.38 It is a perfectly natural word for pointing to a recognized article of faith he seems never to have doubted, but there is no justification for assuming that he intends by his use of it the meanings and the importance it acquired later. Here, to labour the point, ‘nature’ is not a technical word, not a word with a specific conceptual definition explaining the ‘how’ of the incarnation. Because he uses ‘natures’ here, and elsewhere in his early writings, with some frequency, we can say – despite a prevalent scholarly assumption to the contrary – that Cyril is, at this point in his life, a cheerful dyophysite, and probably has been all along, so long as that word signals everyday natures-language, nothing more. It may seem contrary to everything many of us thought we knew about Cyril to recognize that, before the Nestorian Controversy, he was actually quite as content to use two-natures language as he was to use one-nature language, indeed more so. As will be seen, this recognition has important implications for how we understand what happened during the Nestorian Controversy and its aermath. e pre-428 Cyril was equally insouciant about ways of asserting the unity of the divine and human in Christ, again as our passage illustrates. Here he uses for the christological union the expressions ‘ineffably united’ and ‘in some way … brought together’. ese are expressions that eschew explanation, rather, that exult in nonexplanation! ey are used not to define or explain, but to point to, a second recognized and deeply felt reality for Cyril, that Christ is one. e adverbs ‘inexpressibly’ and ‘in some way’ tell the tale. Together, Cyril’s ways of talking about christological unity and christological duality express, so far as one can tell, not so much his reluctance to articulate a conceptually-clear christology, as his complete satisfaction with language that simply points to both the duality and the unity of the incarnate Word, to both the uniqueness and the sharedness of Christ’s humanity, and rejoices in the incomprehensible but wonderful ways of God that make those seemingly contradictory things absolutely and simultaneously true. Was Cyril troubled about how contradictory his assertions might seem? Not at all. To repeat: for him the ways of God were unsearchable; the Word’s becoming flesh was a known reality, but how it took place was unknowable.39 He was genuinely insouciant, content to use language 38. See chapter 3. 39. We certainly find nothing in the early Cyril of the impetus towards clear conceptualizing that so many of us moderns – living as we tend to do in the light of systematic theology and the philosophy of religion – are driven by, and are prone to assume the participants in the controversy were similarly driven by. ere is no hint in Cyril that he felt his was an inadequately worked out christological vocabulary badly in need, as it were, of conceptual development in a Chalcedonian or any other direction, though that seems to be the assumption of those who like to read history backwards.

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that simply pointed at the mysteries proclaimed by the tradition of the fathers, rather than defining or analyzing them. If we were in the business of looking for what Cyril ‘truly’ believed, what the ‘real Cyril’ at the deepest level ‘intended’, the faith expressed by this insouciant Cyril, still untouched by the Nestorian Controversy and the importance it placed on terminology, would be a plausible candidate. Our exploration of Cyril in relation to the tradition of the fathers, along with our exploration of two of his early writings, has not been aimed at establishing ‘the real Cyril’, however, but only a real Cyril, the Cyril, let us say, of 428 just before the troubling news came. We have wanted to gain a clear sense – a sense based on the evidence of texts of the period themselves, not the evidence of later texts, later situations – of what Cyril brought to the Nestorian Controversy. What status and influence was he invested with, and what kind of language was he using when he spoke of Christ? As we have seen, he enjoyed, perhaps even without being consciously aware of it, the enormous advantage of being demonstrably the representative of the dominant tradition of the fathers, not least because he was content simply to repeat its assertions. Andrew Louth has stated one side of the situation with admirable clarity and economy: e Christological controversy was not the clash of two more-or-less equipollent ‘schools’, but rather a response to the dangers represented by an eccentric, and rather scholarly approach to Christology, associated with Antioch, by the broad consensus of Christian confession, of which Cyril projected himself as the spokesman.40

He used terms insouciantly to affirm his simultaneous and uncomplicated belief in the unity of Christ and in his divine-human duality, a faith he sometimes expressed by repeating the traditional language of Athanasius and Nicaea, sometimes by using words or expressions from everyday language that pointed, in a broad sense, to Christ’s unity and duality. He brought to the Nestorian Controversy, contrary to some common assumptions, neither a predilection for the ‘one incarnate nature’ formula nor an antipathy towards ‘two natures’. Conceptual clarity or, to use Nestorius’ favourite word, ‘precision’, when talking about such things, was to him neither desirable nor appropriate in the face of God’s ineffability and omnipotence. If someone wanted to arouse this Cyril’s wrath, he would need to challenge in some overt way – though not by introducing a particular way of putting things, since he was free and easy himself about using a variety of expressions, and certainly not by using the dyophysite 40. Louth, ‘Why did the Syrians reject the council?’, in Price and Whitby (eds.), Chalcedon in Context, p. 111.

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language Cyril himself was happy to use – the tradition of the fathers as he understood and embraced it. at challenge Cyril would face in 428. An acute observer of Cyril standing at a moment just before the Nestorian Controversy broke out, would have expected him to respond with the confidence of one assured that he stood in the true orthodox tradition of the fathers, and that the Nicene Creed of those same fathers, grasped in simple faith and asserted in simple language, was all-sufficient. It would have seemed unthinkable that how one used natures-language for Christ would one day become the focus of a controversy that would exhaust and nearly destroy him. (One should add a reminder, here, that the same acute observer would have expected Cyril to invoke his authority as representative of orthodoxy, and the power of his highly-developed communications network, to act effectively against such a threat). What then can we reliably say about the formula ‘one incarnate nature of the Word of God’? For all this talk about Cyril and ‘two natures’, was not the one-nature formula still his favoured way of talking about Christ in the years before the Nestorian Controversy, as is so oen asserted? e embarrassing truth for scholars who want to make that claim is that there is actually only one appearance of this formula in any writing we have from the pre-433 Cyril, and that is in his treatise Against Nestorius of 429. Even there we do not actually have Cyril using it qua formula; we have him echoing, rather, parts of it: ‘Now one nature is to be understood aer the union, the incarnate nature of the Word himself.’41 By itself this text shows only that Cyril was acquainted with the pseudo-Athanasian expression, and was happy to use it to say the incarnate Christ was one. But we already know from the Commentary on John that, for him, expressions like this were not used with precisely defined meanings. Here, as there, there is no justification for making much of that kind of casual language. At any rate ‘one swallow doth not a summer make’, nor do two, and two occurrences certainly do not make any set of words a habitual formula, let alone a ‘favoured’ one! We shall have to wait until at least 433 to see Cyril, under radically changed and profoundly difficult conditions, making any serious use of this particular set of words, and then in a way quite new to him. We shall be looking at that episode in due order, but in the meantime it is worth noting something that distances his passing near-quotation of the formula from what he attempts with it in 433. In 433, when he uses the set in the full original form supposedly inherited from Athanasius, ‘one incarnate nature of the Word of God’, he qualifies it with ‘aer the union’, and balances it with ‘out of two natures before 41. Cyril of Alexandria, Five Books against Nestorius II, proemium, ACO I, I, 6, p. 33.

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the union’. e point for the present is simply that the constellation of expressions that Cyril will use in 433 is totally absent four years earlier from Against Nestorius. What Cyril is doing with the particular expression he echoes in Against Nestorius is not answering the challenges posed in 433, of which he has absolutely no sense at this earlier point, but simply countering Nestorius’, in his view divisive, way of saying Christ is two something-or-others, by saying that actually he is one something-or-other (happening to pick up out of memory an expression using the word ‘nature’ for the unity, though it could just as easily have been another expression altogether). Our only possible conclusion must be that ‘one incarnate nature of God the Word’ was not, before 433, a favoured formula for Cyril, let alone the favoured formula. is is so whether we take the word ‘favoured’ to mean a formula frequently used – it appears only once and in a casual way – or take it to mean a formula of special explanatory importance for him, since the complementary language required if it was to have that function is absent.

C 4

CHALLENGE AND RESPONSE: NESTORIUS TAKES ON CYRIL is first episode of our narrative proper involves the year 428 and the outbreak of the Nestorian Controversy before there was direct contact between Cyril and Nestorius, beginning with contentious sermons preached in Constantinople against the use of the title theotokos for Mary, the adoption by some Egyptian monks of this stance, Cyril’s concern to correct this, and his letter to this effect, sent to the monks, but eventually making its way to Nestorius. Issues that call for investigation include: Why did people preach those sermons, and why were some monks attracted to them? What was seen to be at stake for people like Cyril who resisted them? Why was the Letter to the Monks effective, but Antiochenes’ letters were not? How did the parties stand by the end of this preliminary period? We repeat: there was a fundamental incompatibility between Cyril and Nestorius, between the very different ways of being orthodox characteristic of each. ere was on one side the traditional orthodoxy, based on the faith of Athanasius and the Creed of Nicaea, that Cyril was convinced he shared with most of the church in the east. e fact that he was steeped in that traditional orthodoxy, that he occupied not only Athanasius’ throne but also his doctrine, automatically guaranteed him support from most eastern bishops, who had been raised on the heroic narrative of Athanasius and the Nicene Creed. Many may have shared, too, in his profound sense of the interconnection between how the Word was incarnate in his flesh, and how the eucharistic body transmitted life-giving power to human recipients. On the other side was the sophisticated, complex, and élite understanding of theology taught in Antioch and championed by a cadre of likeminded bishops trained by eodore of Mopsuestia, among them Nestorius. It was an oddly asymmetrical divide, the vague but vast community of more-or-less likeminded bishops on Cyril’s side, the small and sharply focused cadre of very likeminded bishops on Nestorius’.1 ey were indeed united in devotion to Nicaea, though they 1. We repeat that there is a real problem with nomenclature when it comes to Cyril and his sympathizers on doctrine, signalled here by the vague ‘way of being orthodox’.

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interpreted its creed differently, and in their detestation of the Arianism they saw it as having defeated in the second half of the fourth century, but something else had happened that was bound to divide them further: whereas Antiochene fathers like Diodore had led the next battle, the battle against Apollinarianism, Alexandrians had not fully engaged with the issues Apollinarius raised, and that led Antiochenes to suspect that people like Cyril were tainted by his heresy. ere were, therefore, good reasons to suppose that one day representatives of these different ways of being as each claimed orthodox would clash. e only questions, really, were when would the clash take place, and what would precipitate it. As it happened, it took place in 428, and it was precipitated by firebrand Antiochene preachers over the previously uncontentious title theotokos (God-bearer) for the Virgin Mary. N   Y T What we commonly call the Nestorian Controversy actually began, then, neither with Nestorius nor with Cyril. It began neither with the assertion of one nature for Christ, nor with the assertion of two natures. So far as the extant evidence allows us to say anything at all, it began as a quarrel between ‘élite’ clergy in Constantinople, nouveaux arrivés with new ideas, on one side, and traditionalists on the other.2 It was in Constantinople that some of these more radical young Antiochene clerics who followed the recently enthroned Nestorius from Antioch to Constantinople (the bishop Dorotheus, and the presbyter Anastasius, for instance), preached against the use of the title theotokos for the Virgin Mary, a title to them suggestive of Apollinarianism.3 at is, the title ‘God-bearer’ seemed to them to imply that God the Word underwent generation and birth, which would mean that he was not divine, again because God was, as all agreed, impassible. We know that eodore of Mopsuestia, the revered teacher of two generations of Antiochene clergy, had raised objections to Words like ‘cadre’, ‘party’, and ‘faction’, perhaps even ‘movement’ suit the Antiochene community of which Nestorius was a member well enough, but they do not fit Cyril et al., who formed a much looser kind of community on doctrine precisely because they shared a common and pervasive sense of what orthodoxy was and always had been – they had not shaped their common faith so much as inherited it, and this meant that they were conscious of it in quite a different way. e words ‘sympathizers’ and ‘allies’, while not entirely accurate, will be used faute de mieux. 2. Friedrich Loofs, Nestoriana: die Fragmente des Nestorius (Halle a.S., 1905), 185, 2–10. 3. Dorotheus: Cyril, Letter to Celestine 3, ACO I, I, 5, p. 11; Anastasius: Socrates Church History VII, 32, pp. 114–19.

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the title, though he would later withdraw them.4 To these Young Turks, though, critiquing the use of theotokos seems to have been an ideal way to demonstrate at once the superiority of the approach they had learned from eodore when it came to assigning biblical titles precisely, and the inferiority of, and the danger run by, the unsophisticated and sloppy way everyone else in the church used titles.5 e controversy, as we said, did not begin with Nestorius, though he would almost certainly have agreed there was a problem with saying theotokos, since he too had been taught by eodore. Perhaps, though, he also shared what we take to be eodore’s developing sense, since he soon abandoned his opposition to theotokos, that the issue was largely semantic, and not worth going to the ramparts for. ere may even have been an early sense among senior Antiochenes that the public attention the Young Turks were attracting was dangerous to themselves and their cause, as indeed it proved to be. What one decides on that question will depend in large part on how one understands the Antiochene fellowship and its sense of its place in the church. If one sees it as a faction openly and generally seeking a means of enlightening the wider church, then the debates in Constantinople were probably an agreed strategy for doing so, given the clear evidence from correspondence among their members that collective strategies were worked out among Antiochenes by constant consultation through letters. If, however, as is proposed here, one sees the fellowship’s senior members – though not its Young Turks – as fully aware of how disturbing their conclusions might appear to ordinary churchmen, and therefore concerned to carry on ‘advanced’ work in private, perhaps in secret – a compelling interpretation if one thinks ahead to John of Antioch’s later attempts, and Nestorius’ own startling proposal (of which more in a later chapter), to recover some private space for élite Antiochenes like themselves – then the brash display put on by the Young Turks in Constantinople must have been seen by them as a tactical error exposing their enterprise unnecessarily to public scrutiny, inevitable misunderstanding, and attacks from traditionalists.6 eir discomfiture will have 4. John of Antioch, Letter to Nestorius 3, ACO I, I, 1, pp. 94–95. 5. is is not to say that assigning titles precisely was not an important contribution of serious scholars like eodore in the fight against Arianism and Apollinarianism. e supercilious tone of Nestorius’ letters to and about Cyril, however, suggests that flaunting their superiority was not unknown among Antiochene theologians conscious of belonging to an élite. 6. eir sense of themselves seems to parallel closely that of Origen and his followers in Alexandria’s ‘school’ (wrongly named a catechetical school: Origen was clearly engaged, not with beginners, with the intelligentsia). While the majority of believers understood the faith in simplistic terms appropriate to their capacity to understand,

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been compounded by Nestorius’ ill-advised decision to throw his support behind the Young Turks, probably because they were seen as in some sense his protégés, when they were attacked in turn. In any case, the theotokos controversy blew up into a major issue when he did so, and the whole fellowship suffered as a result. What Nestorius himself seems to have done, rather than attempting to silence the Young Turks, was to propose a compromise. At least he proposed, as he himself said, that one say christotokos (Christ-bearer) rather than either the traditional theotokos (God-bearer) or the radical anthropotokos (man-bearer), in an attempt to end the dispute in a way that would calm the situation in Constantinople. If so, events overtook him. Before a cooling off of tensions could be achieved, if it was ever sought, some Egyptian monks who had somehow heard the arguments of the Young Turks against theotokos began to imitate them by making the anti-theotokos case in their monasteries, something that could not help but trouble other monks and engage the attention of a patriarch far less likely to be friendly to that kind of argument than Nestorius was, the supremely conservative traditionalist, Cyril of Alexandria. It remains an open question whether it troubled or pleased Nestorius to see that formidable representative of stodgy orthodoxy discomfited. We can see that, right from the start, different strategies on the Antiochene side emerged for addressing what as yet were still only disturbing differences between the two communities. Antiochene bishops could not help but be aware that the great majority of churchmen did not think as they did, but held traditional, and traditionalist, views more or less akin to Cyril’s. e Young Turks took a belligerent approach: they were all for exposing the weaknesses of traditional views, and demonstrating the superiority of the analysis done by sophisticated Antiochenes like themselves. We suspect, as we have said, that senior Antiochenes would by choice have pursued a quite different strategy: they would have preferred to confine doctrinal discussions of an advanced nature to private meetings and communications among themselves, in the certainty that ordinary churchmen would not, could not, understand them and would inevitably get the wrong idea. (e sequel, as will be seen, supports this view of this group’s preferred stance of reticence over engagement in public debate or display). Nestorius’ middle way came too late: the Young Turks had let loose the dogs of (doctrinal) war, and it would be years and could safely be le in their ignorance, an élite was called upon to explore advanced views. As oen happens with such communities, young enthusiasts of Antiochene sympathies – whom we have styled ‘Young Turks’ – proud of their élite status, could not resist showing off.

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before the alternative strategy of confining Antiochene theologizing to the safety of private consultations among the Antiochene fellowship could be resurrected.

C J  F: T L-W B e controversy certainly did not begin with Cyril either, and there is no evidence that, before word of the controversy in Constantinople came to his ears, he did more than take the use of theotokos for granted, though he will never have taken Constantinople itself for granted. e title theotokos was already in use liturgically much earlier, by the mid-third century in fact, and its currency in the fourth is attested by a casual mention in Athanasius.7 When word of the challenge to the use of theotokos actually did come to Cyril’s conservative ears remains an open question. Possibly his agents in the capital reported on the debate there from its outset, but it is impossible to say what he made of their reports if any were submitted. ere is good reason to think that he was not at first eager to confront it, despite lingering scholarly suspicions to the contrary based on the sister’sson-to-eophilus prejudice, according to which he was from the beginning eager to put the boots to Constantinople and its archbishop. By his own report – and it is our only evidence – when he heard anything at all it was only indirectly related to Constantinople: what he heard was that an upset had been caused in the monasteries of Egypt by the attempts of some monks to imitate the Young Turks’ clever arguments against theotokos. So it was that he wrote his first letter of the not-yet-Nestorian controversy neither to, nor against, nor about Nestorius or his Young Turks, though that is what we would surely expect if his supposed feelings of animosity were fixed on Nestorius and Constantinople from the outset. Instead, he wrote his first letter to monks of Egypt who were legitimately and traditionally under his pastoral care as Patriarch of Alexandria, addressing everything in it to the issue of theotokos that was troubling them. It cannot be demonstrated that he had any clear notion of what he was up against, or of how to address it. He simply reacted to it in ways suggested by the conservative tradition he inhabited with so much fervour. (Alternatively, to take up again the hermeneutic of suspicion about Cyril, we might guess that he chose to present his first barb against Nestorius in 7. e Virgin Mary is addressed as theotokos in the vocative in the ancient hymn Sub Tuum Praesidium, attested as early as the third century. It appears elsewhere as well. e important appearance of the title is in Athanasius, Against the Arians III, 14, PG 26, p. 29.

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the eirenic garb of a pastoral intervention in troubles among his monks that he knew perfectly well would reach Nestorius’ ears and be understood as hostile. In the end, deciding which is the true interpretation is of no value for our purposes). Cyril and Nestorius first became engaged, not directly with each other, then, but with an already existing controversy over theotokos in Constantinople, and they became engaged with it in quite different ways. Nestorius engaged with it first as a debate over a minor theological point between his protégés from Antioch and local Constantinopolitan clergy, clearly something that fell within his purview as archbishop, and something he, as an Antiochene, was interested in himself. He quite appropriately attempted to mediate the dispute. He was in this addressing the Constantinopolitan situation, not the spread of controversy more widely. All the same, the possibility that Apollinarianism lay behind support for theotokos, raised by the Young Turks, will have alerted Nestorius to the danger of heresy implied by Cyril’s negative response, Such swi action as he might have taken to head off a dispute with Cyril’s community, whose however-veiled critique clearly stung him, was not taken, the first failed opportunity for peace of several.8 He could, perhaps, have contained the discussion to Constantinople, ordering the Young Turks to avoid engaging outsiders. When Cyril did become engaged, Nestorius could have gritted his teeth, remained silent, and waited for the storm to blow over. He could have written to Cyril dismissing the matter as a tempest in a teapot, a silly controversy over words. He could even have apologized to him for the trouble his protégés – whom he could have described, perhaps, as merely ‘over-zealous’ young men he regretted not having kept a closer watch on – had caused the latter’s monks. Had he taken some such action successfully, it is possible to believe that he and Cyril could have coexisted, though peace between them would have depended, as peace usually does, on the parties’ not inquiring too closely into one another’s teaching!9 As it was, Nestorius got involved with the controversy in Constantinople, the controversy in Constantinople spilled over into Egypt, Cyril became engaged with it, and Nestorius wrote to chastise him. Until he wrote, it was not yet the Nestorian Controversy, but when he did, the way he 8. Opportunity would knock again in 431, when he was advised by the Antiochene fellowship to drop his opposition to theotokos. See chapter 5. 9. is study will show there to have been a series of such lost opportunities. It will also show that the approach of attempting to achieve peaceful coexistence on the basis of not inquiring closely into one another’s teaching was in fact embraced, and for a long time; it was destined to play, as will be seen, a central role in the transitions that are the subject of this study.

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wrote – throwing down the gauntlet – guaranteed a hostile response. e weapon of choice on both sides was the letter. C’ C  W B  M Cyril’s Letter to the Monks of Egypt is our best evidence for what was and what was not at issue for him when he became engaged with the Constantinopolitan debate that had overflowed into the Egyptian monasteries, and for what he chose to do about it. Pace the common view, as has already been argued, he came to this moment with no commitment to ‘one nature’ or ‘two natures’, both of which expressions, along with many others, he used casually to point to the unity or the duality of Christ, showing that in standing against the pretentions to theological prowess of some of his monks he still stands where he stood before. Moreover, he remains content to use language insouciantly and imprecisely. So he asserts: ‘[T]he Emmanuel is admittedly of two entities, of divinity and humanity. ere is, however, one Lord Jesus Christ … God and man at the same time.’10 He uses only the vague ‘entities’ to assert Christ’s duality, nothing more precise, and when it comes to Christ’s oneness, baldly asserts just that Christ is one. ough the Young Turks may have understood an admission of two natures – ‘natures’ being used in their Antiochene circle in a very precise way – to have profound implications, including the inadmissibility of calling Mary theotokos, there is no evidence that Cyril either was acquainted with, or understood, or chose to address that reasoning. He does not mention natures. With this letter there is no mention, either, of anything remotely connected with his supposedly favourite formula, ‘one incarnate nature’. Whether one was to say ‘nature’ or ‘natures’ was plainly not an issue for him. at it eventually became an issue has no bearing here, and to assume that it does is to misunderstand, as so many do, the nature of the controversy at this early stage. Cyril was ready to engage Nestorius, but not on the issue of natures. What he was prepared to fight for in 428 was something quite different. What Cyril was prepared to fight for was something that had been his central concern all along: the tradition of the fathers lying, as he saw it, behind the use of theotokos, and inextricably intertwined with it was the fundamental assumption of those who thought, as he did, that orthodox doctrine had been established once and for all by the tradition of the fathers and Nicaea. at is why he tackled first and foremost the very 10. Cyril, Letter to the Monks of Egypt, ACO I, I, 1, p. 18, tr. FC 76, p. 26.

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notion, implied by the monks’ willingness to engage in debate over theotokos, that attempting to advance theological discourse was even remotely acceptable. e trouble among the monks, he said, had been caused by those among them who made, in imitation of trouble-makers from Constantinople, just such an attempt, going about ‘spewing out a multitude of useless pet phrases, making close inquiries …’11 It was not for monks, he said, to take up ‘difficult questions … a puzzle for “keen minds” and “trained intellects”.’12 He himself had no intention of engaging in a ‘battle of words’, he said, and discouraged the monks from doing so.13 In short, Cyril responds to the controversy raging in the monasteries under his care in precisely the way we would expect of the man we know to have been always deeply devoted to preserving the tradition of the fathers. e monks should, he says, abandon any attempt to engage in progressive theologizing; instead, they should repeat word-for-word, or reproduce in simple understandable language, just what the fathers said, above all in the Nicene Creed; they should introduce no novelty whatsoever. What they should adhere to is the Creed, whose section on the Son says, ‘and [we believe] in one lord, Jesus Christ, the Son of God, begotten of the Father, the only-begotten … who for us men and for our salvation descended, became incarnate, was made man, suffered, and rose again on the third day, ascended into heaven; he is coming to judge the living and the dead …’14 Saying theotokos for him is just a corollary of what the Creed says, that the Lord who really was the divine Son ‘was made man’, a point made with telling sharpness in the form of a simple but absolutely fundamental rhetorical question he poses: ‘For if our Lord Jesus Christ is God, how is the Virgin who bore him not the bearer of God [theotokos]?’15 In Cyril’s view the answer had to be ‘ere is no way she could not be theotokos.’ at is the heart of Cyril’s letter, what he sees himself as going to the ramparts for when he takes up arms to defend a title for Mary. Cyril employs, not so much a strategy proposing a better doctrinal analysis than Nestorius could offer, as a straightforward call for a return to timehonoured orthodoxy based on what he supposed to be a literal reading of the Creed and the tradition of the fathers. 11. Cyril, Letter to the Monks 3, ACO I, I, 1, p. 11, tr. FC 76, p. 14. 12. Cyril, Letter to the Monks 3, ACO I, I, 1, p. 11, tr. FC 76, p. 15. I have supplied the quotation marks around ‘keen minds’ and ‘trained intellects’ to signal what I believe to be sarcasm here. As will be illustrated in the next chapter, the Antiochenes had no hesitation about seeing themselves as an intellectual élite of keen minds and trained intellects, and I suspect Cyril had picked these phrases up from those who informed him about the situation among the monks of Egypt. 13. Cyril, Letter to the Monks 3, ACO I, I, 1, p. 11, tr. FC 76, p. 15. 14. Cyril, Letter to the Monks 6, ACO I, I, 1, pp. 12–13, tr. FC 76, p. 17. 15. Cyril, Letter to the Monks 4, ACO I, I, 1, p. 11, tr. FC 76, p. 15.

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T   T Cyril could have ended his letter there but for one quibble, a quibble felt with particular sensitivity by someone who saw himself as standing up for literal Nicene orthodoxy: theotokos was not a word used by the very Nicene Creed Cyril was attempting to defend, and it was not in Scripture either. e answer Cyril offers brings to the fore something implicit in his writings: the conviction that the tradition, with its three strands (Scripture, the Creed, and the fathers) always speaks with one voice, and that therefore what any one strand asserts is tacitly asserted by the others. Theotokos, thus, must be recognized as what the disciples implicitly taught in Scripture because ‘So we have been taught to think by the holy Fathers.’16 Most importantly, the quintessential father, Athanasius, used the title, and his every word is to be taken as gospel because ‘he did not say anything which is not in agreement with Holy Scripture.’17 One might say with some justice that here, growing out of the developed sense of a tradition of the fathers so dear to Cyril, and nudged as it were over the edge by the peculiar exigencies of the theotokos debate, is to be found for the first time the argumentum patristicum, the argument from the fathers, in all its fullness! It is only because ‘it is likely that some think it necessary for us to confirm our statement concerning this matter’ – ‘confirm’, not ‘establish’, notice; Athanasius’ witness has done that already – ‘from the holy and divinely inspired Scripture itself …’ that anything more needs to be said.18 So, he says, if Philippians 2 is to be taken, as it should be, at face value, the one ‘equal with God’ who ‘humbled himself’ by taking on ‘the form of a servant’ (and if that humiliation meant, as it obviously did for Paul, birth and death) could only be the Word himself, who therefore really was born and who really suffered death in his flesh. at could only mean that the one who bore him was theotokos. In short, to Cyril it seemed patently obvious that the entire orthodox constellation – scripture, the fathers, the Creed – said, though not in so many words, theotokos. At the outset of what was to become the Nestorian Controversy, then, we have a situation rather different from what is oen described. Nestorius and Cyril, though they have not yet engaged one another directly, do seem set upon a collision course focused, whether by chance or by malevolent plan, on the title theotokos, but not as is so oen supposed because of a recognized incompatibility between their christological positions over the issue of natures, one supposedly favouring ‘two natures’, the other ‘one nature’. e pre-controversial Cyril, having cheerfully used the word 16. Cyril, Letter to the Monks 4, ACO I, I, 1, p. 11, tr. FC 76, p. 15. 17. Cyril, Letter to the Monks 4, ACO I, I, 1, p. 12, tr. FC 76, p. 16. 18. Cyril, Letter to the Monks 5, ACO I, I, 1, p. 12, tr. FC 76, p. 16.

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‘nature/s’ for both the unity and the duality of Christ, and so not yet a champion of ‘one nature’, turns out in this letter to remain little concerned whether one says ‘natures’ or ‘nature’, so little in fact that he uses neither expression. Nor would ‘nature’ vs. ‘natures’ seem to have been argued by the monks, for surely Cyril would have mentioned it and attempted to respond if it had. ere may be good reason to suppose that Nestorius saw the admission of two natures, construed in a certain way, as fundamental to real orthodoxy, and the admission of one nature tantamount to outright Apollinarianism, but if so the point is that no one, including the monks on one hand, and Nestorius on the other, had alerted Cyril to the importance of saying two natures, let alone the importance of construing said two natures in any precise way.19 e heart of the matter for Cyril at the outset was neither theotokos of itself nor nature/s, but simply the right approach to doctrine – as we have seen, he believed in embracing the tradition of the fathers, which was one with the Creed and with Scripture, without alteration. at was what was at stake in whether or not you were willing to say theotokos. Saying theotokos or refusing to say theotokos was important, and not optional, because it was a key indicator that you took the right, traditional approach, or the wrong non-traditional one. What the situation in the monasteries seemed to illustrate was that to deny theotokos indicated a dangerously speculative approach. at Cyril took it to be this kind of indicator was to prove important later, in that it made it possible for him to assume that anyone who did say theotokos stood with the rest of the tradition of the fathers as he understood it. at was a totally unreliable assumption, as time would tell, and it opened up opportunities for his enemies to misrepresent themselves that they would not otherwise have had.20 C’ A C Two ways in which Cyril was positioned to acquire even greater status as the authoritative representative of orthodoxy in the eyes of the broader church were his identification with the tradition of the fathers represented by the Creed of Nicaea and Athanasius, and the kinship of his faith with 19. Grillmeier, Christ I, p. 457, citing Nestorius, Second Letter to Cyril, Loofs, Nestoriana, p. 176. 20. is interpretation is supported by the fact that, though Cyril would go on to say that Nestorius needed to give up his wrong-minded ideas, he never specified what they were, and in the end demanded only that he agree to say theotokos. As will be seen in Chapter 5, Nestorius and John of Antioch did agree to say theotokos as a way of placating Cyril, though the plan was not tried due to changing circumstances.

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the simple faith of a majority of ordinary church people, both dealt with in the previous chapter. Now there is a third, the letter. e Letter to the Monks of Egypt is just the first of a series of letters Cyril wrote and circulated between 428 and 433; those letters were to prove incredibly influential in further establishing Cyril’s status. ey achieved the effect we are talking about in just a few years.21 We can tell this, for one thing, from hostile witnesses in John of Antioch’s camp who, in the protracted negotiations that led up to the signing of the ‘Union’ statement of 433, identified the neutralizing of the early letters as an essential condition for peace, and demanded that Cyril withdraw them.22 e letters were, then, of crucial importance: no one was more interested in, or better informed about, the power of Cyril’s letters than these very intelligent enemies of his. Without the letters, they were convinced, Cyril’s authority would have stopped at the boundaries of Egypt; as long as the letters were in circulation, they worked powerfully to confirm that authority in the eyes of the wider church. (Cyril, of course, refused to withdraw the letters). ough post-433 letters would eventually be cited in the struggle over doctrine and over Cyril, it was the early letters’ powerful success which confirmed him as an icon of orthodoxy. None was more important or influential than the Letter to the Monks of Egypt. Four factors contributing to this letter’s extraordinary influence can be identified: (1) Because copies were circulated widely, something Cyril encouraged, it gained an audience well beyond the constituency addressed in the first instance, as did the letters which followed. (2) Cyril chose to appeal directly, not to Nestorius, supposing that he knew of Nestorius’ relationship to those who had turned some of the monks’ heads, but to the lowly monks themselves. In this, his approach contrasted sharply with his opponents’ condescending attitude; Cyril said he respected monastics and lower or unimportant clergy, whereas Antiochenes condescended to them; their preference was for communicating almost entirely with each other rather than with the wider church. (3) He found convincing ways 21. Cyril, Letter to Eulogius, Wickham, pp. 66–67: Besides a reference to a contemporaneous letter of his (to Acacius of Melitene) as giving ‘a good account of all matters’, Cyril explicitly urges Eulogius to circulate his, Cyril’s, letters: ‘You have a large number of letters in the file which you ought to be active in giving out …’ He names, among others, his second and third letters to Nestorius. Even his foes paid Cyril’s letters the compliment of circulating copies of forged letters, said to be by him, as being useful to their cause: ‘If a letter allegedly written by me be brought by anybody implying that I have changed my mind about what we did at Ephesus, this too should be treated with derision’, he writes in his Letter to Acacius of Melitene 27, Wickham, pp. 60–61. 22. E.g. Cyril, Letter to Acacius of Beroea 2, ACO I, I, 7, pp. 147–50, tr. FC 76, pp. 128– 35.

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to identify with the monks on the basis of what he assumed, almost always correctly, to be the simple, traditional faith they shared with him. (4) He actively identified himself and them with the revered tradition of the fathers, especially Athanasius, and of Nicaea. It is significant that Cyril’s first letter of the controversy was addressed simply to monks. e choice of addressees signifies the close relationship Cyril established with that constituency. He not only addressed monks, he nurtured a close relationship with them. He begins with extensive praise for their heroic achievements in asceticism, and it is only aer doing so, and aer expressing his concern for them as their episcopal patron, that he mentions what he specifically wants to address, the fact that some monks have been influenced by outsiders to take up novel ideas critical of the title theotokos. Cyril tactfully construes this phenomenon neither as disobedience nor as heretical error, but as a case of falling into the temptation, so oen described in monastic literature, of inquiring into rarefied theological debates that are not the proper business of monks. is does not mean that he thinks they are ignorant, just that they should avoid arcane issues. eir natural state is to be steeped in the simple but deep orthodox tradition and they are, as such, worthy of the highest respect. His intention is not to teach them a more refined understanding of ‘the apostolic teaching’;23 it is, he says, just to recall them to their true orthodox selves. ey are by nature both pious and orthodox. He is happy to devote the rest of a rather long letter, not to articulating some advanced understanding of his own, but to re-articulating the monks’ traditional orthodoxy in language that is, if by Nestorius’ standards ‘indigestible’, a model of simplicity and accessibility by comparison, as we shall shortly see, with what may be taken to be a characteristic letter from an Antiochene.24 It is hardly surprising that a letter presenting Cyril as the natural ally of those steeped in a simple, traditional faith built on a literal and straightforward reading of key New-Testament texts and of the revered Creed of Nicaea gained the monks’ respect and trust.

23. It is perhaps significant that this expression oen appears in the letters of eodoret. It may well capture the Antiochenes’ sense that their precise exegesis enabled them to get at what the biblical writers intended, what they really meant, as opposed to the literal meaning espoused all too easily by the uninstructed. For instance see below the opinion of Nestorius on the uninstructed. 24. Nestorius’ dismissal of Cyril’s style as indigestible need not be taken seriously. As learned a connoisseur of Greek patristic writing as Edward. R. Hardy once remarked at an Oxford Conference that Cyril, in whose writings he had immersed himself at the time, while ‘hardly the favoured companion of my leisure hours’ – I believe those were his exact words – made ‘not unpleasant reading’.

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e other half of that happy consonance between Cyril and monks he sees as models of simple Nicene orthodoxy is his presentation of himself as steeped in that same orthodoxy in his letters. He was in fact orthodox in just the sense he prescribed, that is, he was someone who simply repeated the doctrines the fathers had articulated. In a controversy such as was breaking out around him, however, for Cyril simply to be Athanasian by intention and in literal fact by virtue of slavish imitation, while it would obviously be a helpful starting-point in establishing that he was in the ‘tradition of the fathers’, would not be enough to guarantee success in this enterprise and thus in winning majority support; he would also need to make himself appear to be Athanasian (to wrap himself convincingly in the mantle of Athanasius, in fact) in such a way as to convince a majority of his readers. e peculiar exigencies of defending the nonscriptural, non-Nicene title theotokos led Cyril to turn to Athanasius, the one father to mention it, but fortunately also the father above all others with whom Cyril identified himself. He writes in glowing terms: ‘And, in any event, our father Athanasius, of hallowed memory, adorned the throne of the Church of Alexandria for the whole of forty-six years and arrayed an unconquerable and apostolic knowledge in battle against the sophistries of the unholy heretics and greatly gladdened the world by his writings as by a most fragrant perfume and all bear witness to the accuracy and piety of his teachings.’25 at Cyril sat on that same throne, and was, he could convincingly claim, similarly battling against heretical sophistries, was a point no reader would miss: he was the new Athanasius. A L: H N  W S What made Cyril’s letters the success they were stands out all the more clearly when one compares them with letters written in similar situations by his opponents. ey did not win widespread popular support, partly because they simply did not see the need to reach out to monastics and clergy outside the Antiochene circle. ey wrote mainly to each other. e contrast with Cyril is marked. ere was also the matter of attitude. Nestorius, for one, seemed bent on insulting the very people Cyril showed respect for, and the traditional faith they held. When Cyril wrote to the monastic leaders of Constantinople, he declined, he said, to attack Nestorius for inciting his (Cyril’s) own monks against their bishop, though 25. Cyril, Letter to the Monks 4, ACO I, I, 1, p. 11, tr. FC 76, p. 15. Note the words ‘in any event’. What Cyril means is that, though he has implied the universal use of theotokos by the fathers, the only one who really matters is Athanasius.

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he felt that for Nestorius to have done so was wrong. He declined, too, to strike back at Nestorius for attacking him personally. In other words, he claimed the moral high ground, and no doubt thereby won a certain amount of sympathy right off the bat. For our purposes, though, the next point he made was the important one: what he did protest against, he wrote, was Nestorius’ attitude towards those holding the simple, traditional faith, and he illustrated his point with revealing citations from Nestorius’ own writings.26 Nestorius, he reports, wrote patronizingly to people who were shocked by his teaching. He told such people that they were, though perhaps in their simple way pious and reverent, ‘incapacitated by ignorance of divine mysteries …’ Even more patronizingly, he went on to explain that their ignorance was not their own fault, but the fault of their teachers, who ‘do not have the opportunity to place before [them] some of the dogmas more precisely’.27 is characterization by Nestorius of bishops who allegedly had not explained doctrine adequately to their monks was repeated in what he wrote to Cyril himself: Cyril’s letters, he said, were full of ‘the nausea of obscure and indigestible tediousness’, and showed he had read the fathers of Nicaea ‘without due attention’, in short, imprecisely.28 Nestorius thus insulted simple believers as ignoramuses, and the revered bishops charged with instructing them in the faith as at best intellectually lazy, at worst no less ignorant than their students, while suggesting indirectly that he and his colleagues were really the only ones who could explain doctrine at any kind of high level and accuracy. (‘Precise’ and ‘precision’ were words that recurred over and over again in the mouths and letters of Nestorius and his fellow Antiochenes, always implying an unflattering contrast with the ignorant and misleading understanding of those outside their circle). Of course one possible response – and one clearly taken by at least a few monks of Egypt – was to be attracted to and convinced by these claims to superiority. e more common response among monks, evidently, was to be troubled by it, and to turn to their respected traditional teachers, among them the Archbishop of Alexandria, for direction. Being just that kind of traditional teacher, Cyril was surely the one whose authority was on the whole enhanced by such an episode, simply because of the negative reaction Nestorius’ words 26. Cyril, Letter to the Apocrisiaries 4, ACO I, I, 1, pp. 110–11. 27. Cyril, Letter to the Apocrisiaries 4, ACO I, I, 1, p. 111, tr. FC 76, p. 57. Nestorius was equally snippy and superior with his peer, Cyril, in a text the latter cites: ‘I judge your affection toward me not by outcry, but by your desire to be instructed …’ loc. cit. If Nestorius was arrogant enough to claim the right to instruct even a fellow archbishop, and a patriarch at that, on matters of orthodoxy, it is no wonder he looked down on simple monks, clerics, and laypeople. 28. Nestorius, Second Letter to Cyril 1, ACO I, I, 1, p. 29.

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were sure to excite. Nestorius won a few disciples, no doubt, but his condescending attitude was likely to do his cause more harm than good. No letter of Nestorius to monks survives, but we have a letter we can legitimately use in a comparison with Cyril’s letter. It is a letter Nestorius’ friend and fellow Antiochene, eodoret, wrote to monks three years aer Cyril wrote his to the monks of Egypt, that is, soon aer Ephesus I. It is a letter that has attracted scholarly attention principally for its recapitulation of eodoret’s attack on Cyril’s twelve anathemas.29 From our point of view, it is fortunate that we have this letter, not for its substance, but for other features that make it quite like Cyril’s letter to the monks. A letter, like Cyril’s, to monks whose support its author is attempting to consolidate, it is close in date to it, similar in its choice of addressees, and identical in its purpose. e contrasts in manner and content are, as a result, all the more revealing. e addressees in this case were monks of eodoret’s own patriarchy, sympathetic to his cause (as we have noted, Antiochenes did not tend to write to persons not already known to them). ere is admittedly an important difference between their situations – Cyril was writing as a patriarch to ‘his’ monks; eodoret was only one influential bishop writing to monks in other people’s dioceses – but the parallels stand. eodoret opens, as can oen be seen in his letters, with an extended metaphor in the classical manner. In this case the church is said to be a fleet of ships caught in a storm at sea, and instead of keeping the peace while they try to set a safe course, the pilots are quarreling, all because Cyril has tried to introduce an innovation in the faith by means of his anathemas. e manner is school-masterly – eodoret assumes that his role is to instruct his readers, theirs to take instruction – but the metaphor is accessible enough, and the charge of innovation exactly what every theological disputant charged his opponent with. It is what follows that sets eodoret’s approach apart from Cyril’s: a lengthy refutation of each of the anathemas constructed on the basis of closely-argued and minute exegetical decisions about exactly how each and every biblical reference to Christ is to be applied – an example of the famous Antiochene ‘precision’ of which Nestorius boasted, and the lack of which he found so appalling in Cyril and those who thought as he did. e monastic reader is expected to digest this bewildering mass of exegetical reasoning and its conclusions, and to recognize its implications for christology. He is also expected to recognize what is being asserted in supposed demonstrations 29. eodoret, Letter to the Monks of Euphratensis, Osrhoene, Syria, Phoenicia, and Cilicia (SC 429; Paris, 1998), pp. 96–129.

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that the implication of Cyril’s position is entanglement in some form of Apollinarian, Arian, Eunomian, Manichaean, and/or Valentinian heresy. It is difficult to imagine monastic readers, sympathetic to eodoret or not, making much sense of it. It is much easier to imagine a monk inclined to be sympathetic with the kinds of things Cyril said (if that monk even managed to read so far in this dense letter) finding it very revealing that eodoret, though willing to cite much of the Johannine prologue, did not cite the one phrase essential to Nicene orthodoxy as Cyril and the majority of monks understood it, ‘and the Word became flesh …’ In short, eodoret wrote to these monks much as he would write to an educated episcopal colleague he hoped to impress, employing a high literary style, and touting the achievements of Antiochene exegesis in the hope of convincing them that the Nicene Creed had to be understood in a sophisticated and not a literal way. He was not likely to establish much connection with his addressees by this approach. is letter is not in the end so much a failed attempt at enlisting popular support as it is a failure even to attempt to forge a connection with ordinary monks or church people in general.30

30. To be fair, eodoret seems to have learned from Cyril. By 448 he was writing to people from across the whole social and ecclesiastical spectrum, not just to members of his own circle. Perhaps not coincidentally, 448 also witnessed a major new initiative to take control of the agenda in such a way as to favour the Antiochene cause, about which we shall have a good deal to say in due course.

C 5

WAR OR ACCOMMODATION? e first episode of our narrative was rife with missed opportunities and failed initiatives. Young Turks unnecessarily stirred up controversy over a picayune issue, the use of theotokos; Nestorius unnecessarily rallied publically to their cause; controversy needlessly spread to monks of Egypt; Cyril was drawn, whether reluctantly or enthusiastically, into the controversy. It is clear that the sides were very different: the minority Antiochenes were for precise theological language, Cyril and the majority for what they claimed was literal loyalty to the Creed of Nicaea. Talk of ‘natures’ was simply not in overt play by either side – the controversy was all about theotokos. On top of the tactical advantages Cyril has been shown to have enjoyed, his talent for writing winning letters in his cause was demonstrated: compared with his tactful and respectful letters to monks and lower clergy, Antiochene letters took a superior and sarcastic tone unlikely to win them supporters. e first contours of the controversy were thus established, and they were by no means symmetrical. Cyril had the advantage of popular, conservative support from the churches not infiltrated by the Antioch-trained. e Antiochenes were a minority élite, intellectually advanced, but with no gi for growing their support. ey did have a talent for two things, as would eventually become clear: (1) exploiting the alliance the Archbishop of Constantinople normally enjoyed with the emperor; and (2) gaining tactical advantage over a less sophisticated foe through cunning and unexpected strategies. e second episode covers the period from the relatively eirenic first direct epistolary contact between Cyril and Nestorius in Cyril’s First Letter to Nestorius, up to the First Council of Ephesus, as well as the rival council called by the late-arriving Antiochenes and sometimes known, pejoratively, as the Conciliabulum. It is a most dramatic episode. e trouble that began with the theotokos dispute in Constantinople, and then spilled over into the monasteries of Egypt, soon issued in the full-blown Nestorian Controversy; a quarrel that for some years lay just between the archbishops of Alexandria and Constantinople eventually came to engulf the whole empire, and engaged the emperor himself. It did not have to happen like that. ere were strategies Nestorius might have adopted to cast oil on troubled waters. Instead, he chose to let his

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annoyance at the Letter to the Monks of Egypt be made known to Cyril through intermediaries, and this was, as it turned out, the opening salvo of a series of escalating hostilities, as Cyril sought to defend the traditional faith as he understood it, and recall errant monks to it, while the particular Antiochenes involved – Nestorius and the Young Turks – defended the precision of their approach to doctrine. Letters were exchanged between Cyril and Nestorius. Wider constituencies were not openly involved at first, but inevitably other leading Antiochene bishops, especially John of Antioch and eodoret of Cyrus, were drawn into the epistolary quarrel. Letters from both sides were copied and circulated widely in what can properly be called a propaganda war. How determinedly this war was prosecuted by Cyril can be seen in the already-noted complaint he lodges against one of his allies who has not kept up the barrage of letters: ‘You have a large number of letters in the file which you ought to be active in getting out.’1 Cyril’s approach to winning support through letters was successful, whereas the Antiochenes missed their chance, for reasons not hard to discern. It was through his letters, in the end, that Cyril consolidated his status as a church father in the mind of the church. Not surprisingly, perceptive Antiochenes eventually realized the authority Cyril’s letters commanded, and developed strategies for turning the attack aside or, eventually, turning it to their advantage. In the process, what had been an epistolary controversy about doctrine between the individual bishops Cyril and Nestorius threatened to turn into a controversy between parties each employing a distinct canon and distinct interpretation of Cyrillian letters to claim the mantle of Cyril for itself.

T R L   R P e qualities of the letter to the monks of Egypt that worked so wonderfully in Cyril’s favour continued to work in his favour with other letters. For instance, a survey of his extant letters from the early period shows that writing directly to lowly monks and the like rather than to his peers was characteristic of his approach, not something that took place by accident. Of course he wrote to the great and powerful, men like Celestine of Rome, Nestorius of Constantinople, John of Antioch, and Juvenal of Jerusalem, but he oen addressed ordinary diocesan bishops, and even more tellingly lower clergy, monks, and laity. To list just a few examples from the lists of addressees usually found at the beginning of his letters, 1. Cyril, Letter to Eulogius, Wickham, p. 222.

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he writes to ‘priests and deacons, fathers of monks’;2 to ‘his most beloved and most cherished priests and deacons and people of Constantinople’;3 to ‘the most reverend and most God-loving fathers of the monasteries which are in Constantinople’;4 to ‘the bishops Komarius and Potamon, and to the archimandrite of the monasteries, my lord Dalmatius, and to Timothy and Eulogius, beloved and most cherished priests’.5 ere are many more such, but these suffice to make the point: Cyril took care to address the less prestigious constituencies to which these lowly persons belonged, but which constituted by far the majority of the church’s population, and he addressed named individuals from those constituencies with words of affection and respect. Cyril’s letters were effectual partly because he addressed so many constituencies, but also because copies were so widely circulated. We have mentioned the Antiochene demand of Cyril in 433 that he withdraw his letters, a demand that shows in a general way that they had come to enjoy – in the view of these Antiochenes very dangerously – wide circulation. Cyril’s letter to Pope Celestine provides more detailed evidence of how that came to pass. ‘Some took copies [of the Letter to the Monks of Egypt] to Constantinople’, he writes, ‘and they helped the readers very much, so that very many of those in authority have written thanking me.’6 It is not clear whether copies were prepared by Alexandria or were made in the monasteries; that is of little importance, the essential point being that numerous copies were being made, circulated, and embraced by their recipients. ese first readers of copies are evidently ‘nearly all the monasteries and their archimandrites’ in Constantinople, who were, according to Cyril, shocked by Nestorius’ support of Dorotheus’ public preaching against the use of theotokos.7 Copies of this letter, ‘helping’ people troubled by Antiochene teaching to retain and defend their traditional faith, were thus well on their way to becoming the most widely-circulated reference for orthodox teaching among Cyril’s extremely wide connection. We can be reasonably confident, too, that those who received copies and were convinced by them felt free to create further copies and circulate them. Cyril himself ordered the making of copies of ‘letters written by me’ – and, for the western audience, handily, Latin translations of these 2. Cyril, Letter to the Monks, ACO I, I, 1, p. 10, tr. FC 76, p. 13. 3. Cyril, Letter to the clergy and people of Constantinople, ACO I, I, 1, p. 113, tr. FC 76, p. 93. 4. Cyril, Letter to the Monks, ACO I, I, 5, p. 12, tr. FC 76, p. 96. 5. Cyril, Letter to Komarius and Potemon, ACO I, I, 2, p. 66, tr. FC 76, p. 103. 6. Cyril, Letter to Pope Celestine 4, ACO I, I, 5, p. 11, tr. FC 76, p. 62. 7. Cyril, Letter to Pope Celestine 3, ACO I, I, 5, p. 11, tr. FC 76, pp. 61–62.

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as well – to be produced and sent to Rome, along with a collection of damning citations from Nestorius set beside statements of ‘the great fathers’, these being sent with his emissary, Posidonius.8 To make assurance doubly sure, Posidonius was provided in an ancillary letter with a summary of the points of disagreement between the fathers and Nestorius.9 Reception, as historians of church councils tend to remind us these days, was crucial. We have mentioned Cyril’s own account of how copies of his letter to the monks were received enthusiastically in Constantinople. Rome was even more enthusiastic: Cyril’s writings were ‘a most ready cure’, Pope Celestine said, and he embraced Cyril ‘as if present in your own writings …’; it was ‘a great triumph for our faith to show forth our doctrines so forcefully, and thus to have defeated the opposing doctrines through the testimony of the divine scriptures.’10 Even allowing for hyperbole, these responses from Constantinople and Rome reveal that Cyril’s first letters of the controversy were being received in major centres, and by constituencies both high and low, as a completely reliable and reliably complete corrective to the position being advanced by Nestorius and his fellow Antiochenes. Cyril’s wish to ally himself with monks being a central feature of his campaign, a word is perhaps in order about his relations with monasteries of Constantinople which might, aer all, have been expected to support Nestorius, their archbishop. Presumably it was among these monks that champions were found to take on the Young Turks in debate over theotokos. Constantinople was not a typical primatial city. It was perfectly to be expected that leading prelates from elsewhere would maintain permanent representatives, chiefly bishops, in the capital, where they could represent their domains’ interests both formally, in sessions of the socalled Home Synod, and informally through contacts made and nurtured with court officials and the emperor himself. e imperial court could and did use sessions of the Home Synod as a sounding board to assess opinion across the empire, making participation in it something no leading prelate would want to miss, whether he participated in person or through a representative. Exploiting diplomatic channels at court, as we know from one of Cyril’s letters, might sometimes, perhaps regularly, require the judicious payment of baksheesh, also something perfectly to be expected.11 It was perfectly to be expected, even, that some of the 8. Cyril, Letter to Pope Celestine 6, ACO I, I, 5, p. 12, tr. FC 76, pp. 63–64. 9. Cyril, Commonitorium to Posidonius the Deacon, ACO I, I, 7, pp. 171–72. 10. Celestine, Letter to Cyril, ACO I, I, 1, p. 75, tr. FC 76, pp. 67–68. 11. Cyril, Catalogue of Things Dispatched from Here to the Following, ACO I, IV, pp. 224–25. While the evidence of bribery on Cyril’s part is oen used to vilify him, it seems at least probable that paying baksheesh was simply a normal part of doing business

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larger monasteries of the far-flung empire would have small daughter houses in the capital, and that they too, normally but less formally, might represent the interests of their house to court officials. At any time there would be significant populations of people of all sorts from the provinces, certainly from Egypt, present and living in the capital. ese were the kind of regular channels, much as in modern times, through which provinces communicated with the centre, and that the centre used to communicate with the provinces. e court, however, was not only the central government of a vast empire in relationship with its provinces; it was also, quite specifically, the court resident in, belonging to, and vulnerable to Constantinople. is meant, for one thing, that the archbishop of Constantinople quite naturally became, in many instances, the emperor’s chief advisor on ecclesiastical policy, almost his ‘minister for ecclesiastical affairs’.12 But Constantinople also had a dangerously fractious population, susceptible to being influenced and mobilized by, among other persons and institutions, the monasteries. e court therefore ignored the monasteries, and failed to respond to the interests they represented, at its peril. Riots that might threaten even the imperial throne were always a possibility. Nestorius, in the normal way of things, initially found favour with the court, but he quickly alienated many monks of the capital, and through them the populace.13 Two of the central aspects of the ideal court/city relationship – the archbishop, and the monks – were thus at variance. It was one of the keys to Cyril’s eventual success against Nestorius, even with the initially unsympathetic court of eodosius, that he specifically cultivated the monks of Constantinople, winning the support of most of them, and through them that of the city’s lay population; it was a matter of Constantinopolitan Realpolitik that eodosius could not, in 431, simply impose a victory for Nestorius by approving John of Antioch’s Conciliabulum, as we can tell he would have liked to do, nor was there any chance he would approve Cyril’s Council. with the court. It is plausibly suggested that his willingness to pay bribes, bankrupting the church of Alexandria thereby, demonstrates just how seriously he took his cause. 12. An example is Epiphanius, Patriarch of Constantinople, who was specifically not included in the Conversations of 532, though his synkelloi were; they reported frequently to him on the progress of the conversations. See John of Beit Aphtona, Report 3, ed. and tr. Sebastian Brock, ‘e Conversations with the Syrian Orthodox under Justinian (532)’, in Averil Cameron and Robert Hoyland (eds.), Doctrine and Debate in the East Christian World, 300–1500 (Farnham–Burlington, 2011), pp. 49–84. See also the report of a Chalcedonian participant: Innocentius of Maronia, Letter to Thomas the Priest, ACO IV, 2, p. 169. 13. Nestorius, Second Apology = The Bazaar of Heracleides, tr. J.R. Driver and I. Hodgson (Oxford, 1925; reprinted Michigan, 2009) II, 1. See further Nicholas Constas, Proclus of Constantinople and the Cult of the Virgin in Late Antiquity (Leiden–Boston, 2003), p. 49.

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T W   H F . I Identification with the tradition of the fathers continued to be a hallmark of Cyril’s letters. He identified himself and his faith in the Virgin theotokos particularly with Athanasius over and over again as the controversy progressed. e identification is always claimed, directly or indirectly, in his letters. In his First Letter to Nestorius, he claimed his stand on christology was of a piece with his teaching (copied from Athanasius, we remember) on the Trinity.14 In his Second Letter to Nestorius he specifies exactly how one ought to ensure one is orthodox: one ought to abide by the fathers’ teaching, be ‘earnest in considering them of great value’, and test oneself according to Scripture. If we do that, he says, ‘it will truly come about that we most fitly will mold our thoughts to their upright and blameless judgments’.15 Originality is therefore to be avoided. One is to follow the fathers slavishly. In short, one is to be like Cyril in his Athanasian/Nicene fundamentalism. As for Nicaea, Cyril says one simply has to follow its christological section, ‘keeping in mind what “having been made flesh” means; and [remembering] that it makes clear that the Logos from God became man.’16 is is exactly what he took to be the literal reading of Nicaea – the Word actually became flesh – that an Antiochene satirist ridiculed in Eranistes, but is it not also the literal reading Cyril could rightly assume was held by most churchmen?17 Nestorius made a sarcastic offer to Cyril – ‘I shall rid you of your misinterpretation of those holy Fathers’ – but when their letters were circulated at large in the propaganda war that followed, Nestorius’ complex parsing of the fathers’ teaching was unlikely to be understood, let alone appreciated, over against Cyril’s championing of what seemed to be the plain Athanasian/ Nicene narrative of salvation, and his ‘advanced’ interpretation of the Creed was unlikely to be seen by most as anything other than the feared introduction of novelty.18 Much more effective, too, than Nestorius’ intricately worked out understanding of patristic teaching was something mentioned in passing earlier, the introduction by Cyril, in a letter to Pope Celestine accompanying copies of his early letters (at this point undoubtedly including that to the monks of Egypt, and his first two letters to Nestorius) of a new tactic that 14. See the discussion in Chapter 4. 15. Cyril, Second Letter to Nestorius 2, ACO I, I, 1, p. 26, tr. FC 76, p. 39. 16. Cyril, Second Letter to Nestorius 3, ACO I, I, 1, p. 26, tr. FC 76, p. 39. 17. e ridicule: Eranistes, Dialogue I, p. 79. at Cyril’s christology could be ridiculed by an élite Antiochene says nothing about the deep respect it enjoyed from nonélite clergy, monks, and laypeople. 18. Nestorius, Second Letter to Cyril 2, ACO I, I, 1, p. 29.

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followed logically from his relationship to the fathers: the creation of a florilegium, that is, the lining up of excerpts, in this case from Nestorius, of a suspect person’s ‘principal statements’ and placing them alongside ‘what our blessed and great Fathers say and think’ – the tradition of the fathers crystallized in the careful selection of the authoritative texts – so that they might be compared, and the suspect’s orthodoxy or heterodoxy proven.19 It goes without saying that Nestorius’ condemnation of the use of theotokos would be enough to condemn him when it was lined up, shorn of any explanatory text, against the use of theotokos by the quintessential father, Athanasius, and other fathers, whose evidence would of course be at the heart of ‘what our … Fathers said and thought’. So convinced was Cyril of the value of this tactic that, as he says, he had the comparisons translated into Latin for the pope’s easy consumption.20 e deepening of the controversy into crisis in late 430 and early 431, helped along by Rome’s pre-emptive condemnation of Nestorius’ teaching and by Cyril’s parallel third letter to Nestorius with its anathemas, provided new opportunities for identifying with Athanasius, whose parallel crisis-ridden story was well known. When he had just sent off the fateful third letter, Cyril wrote again to ‘his most beloved and most cherished priests and deacons and people of Constantinople’, people with whom he identified himself, people with whom he shared the badge of honour of having been excommunicated by Nestorius.21 He urged them to stand firm in the impending crisis: ‘Remember also our holy Fathers who rightly and with holiness exercised the function of bishops in our midst and who when they were still going about among you called the Holy Virgin theotokos.’22 Athanasius was certainly the main such bishop, which means that Cyril was here identifying himself and his correspondents, already united under Nestorius’ condemnation, with Athanasius’ unwavering resistance to heresy despite persecution. Even closer parallels could be drawn aer Ephesus I and the Conciliabulum, when Cyril was under house arrest in Ephesus; when he, John of Antioch, and Nestorius were all three declared deposed; and when eventual triumph for Nestorius, if his party’s campaign to have its council legitimized proved the more 19. Cyril, Letter to Celestine 6, ACO I, I, 5, p. 12. 20. Cyril, Letter to Celestine 6, ACO I, I, 5, p. 12, tr. FC 76, pp. 63–64. 21. What he may mean is no more than an implication he drew: Dorotheus had pronounced anathema against anyone who said theotokos; Nestorius had acquiesced in this through his silence when it was pronounced, and his willingness to share communion with Dorotheus. erefore all who said theotokos, from Athanasius down to Cyril and his correspondents, were putatively excommunicated by Nestorius. 22. Cyril, Letter to the Clergy and People of Constantinople, ACO I, I, 1, pp. 113–14, tr. FC 76, p. 94.

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effective of the two currently appealing for support from eodosius, seemed a real possibility. In a letter to sympathetic bishops Cyril indicates how his arrest and persecution by the other side are to be understood: he is grateful that he has been ‘deemed worthy’ of imprisonment and persecution ‘for [Christ’s] name’, a turn of phrase that intentionally echoes both Paul’s and Athanasius’ stays in prison.23 e supreme illustration of the rhetoric that identified Cyril completely with the tradition of the fathers, the Nicene Creed, and Athanasius in particular, is to be found in a letter, not by Cyril, but by the priest Alypius and addressed to Cyril at about the same time. We have seen what it says about Athanasius, but now it deserves to be cited in its entirety, for it pulls together the whole picture showing how at every level the authority of Athanasius was appropriated by Cyril: Blessed is the man whom God will deem worthy to be first to see with the eyes of love your [Cyril’s] divinely favored and holy head, bearing the martyr’s crown of your confession. For you, most holy father, have trodden the way of the holy Fathers with watchful eye, and you have taught those ‘lame in both knees’ to walk upright towards the truth. You have put on the outspokenness of Elias and you alone have assumed the zeal of Phineas. You stopped up the unholy mouth of the venomous dragon, and overturned the gluttonous Bel and rendered useless and strengthless his vain hope of becoming supreme by the means of his wealth and you ruined the contrivance of the golden idol. What mouth giving forth spiritual perfumes will be able to voice the praises of your zeal since you have become the equal of your uncle, the blessed eophilus, by imitating him, and moreover you have wreathed for yourself the martyrdom of the thrice-blessed Athanasius. Just as he escaped the devices of the lawless heretics as if they were crags in the sea by repelling them with his prayers, so also your holiness has stilled the devices of the lawless man as if they were weak tempests by your conscience’s purity of life. In this manner also the blessed Athanasius, aer many false denunciations which arose against him from the heretics, proved them stale and useless. He endured living in a foreign land because of the order of exile brought against him by those who were then in power. As much as their coarse mouths strove to weave their lying accusations, so much the purer and more illustrious did he show himself by his long-suffering, outshining their successes. While weaving for himself the crown of martyrdom by these contests, he proved the consubstantiality and trod underfoot the evil teaching of Arius and upheld orthodoxy and raised alo the holy throne of the evangelist, Mark. And you, by using his words, have followed aer that saint. I pray, therefore, most holy father, that I be deemed worthy to behold with my very eyes your holy countenance and to embrace your knees, and to enjoy the sight of a martyr binding his crown upon his brow in a season of peace.24 23. Cyril, Letter to Theopemptus, Potamon, and Daniel 2, ACO I, I, 3, p. 51, tr. FC 76, p. 63. 24. Alypius, Letter to Cyril, ACO I, I, 3, pp. 74–75, tr. FC 76, pp. 117–18.

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is passage has it all. Cyril is absolutely the new Athanasius. He and Athanasius are one in every possible way: they are one in following the fathers, in their very words, in enduring the white martyrdom of heretical persecution, in being confessors, in enduring exile, in fighting heresy and heretics, in enduring false accusations, in the purity of their lives, in upholding orthodoxy, in establishing correct doctrine (for Cyril theotokos, for Athanasius homoousios), in winning the victor’s/martyr’s crown to inaugurate ‘a season of peace’. Every single feature of what it meant to be a church father, every single feature of the construct ‘Athanasius’ that time had built up in the tradition of the fathers, appears here as also a feature of Cyril in his struggle against Nestorius. For Alypius (and evidently for a significant enough number of likeminded persons) Cyril had so faithfully reproduced in himself the quintessential church father, Athanasius, that what he taught – which, aer all, claimed with some plausibility to be simply what Athanasius had taught before – carried the authority of a church father. Who could then oppose his teaching directly? And if, as was patently the case, no one could oppose it directly with any chance of success, how could one deal with the weight of that authority if it was brought to bear against one? at was the challenge that faced the Antiochene leadership. From this moment on the central story of the ongoing controversy became the story of the strategies Antiochenes developed for dealing with the weight of Cyril’s authority, and the counter-strategies developed on his side, mainly through letterwriting campaigns.

F S C  H What we have been describing explains in good part the essential role Cyril’s campaign of letter-writing and letter-circulating played in establishing more deeply, and among many more people, his reputation as the standard of orthodoxy. It is the backdrop against which the engagement of Cyril with the two Antioch-trained prelates, Nestorius and John of Antioch, was played out. Had Cyril’s campaign not positioned him so well, the complex and evolving relationships between them would undoubtedly have developed in quite different ways. e opening salvo of the Nestorian Controversy properly speaking, as we have noted, took the form of reports which made their way to Cyril’s ears of Nestorius’ annoyance with him when he read his Letter to the Monks of Egypt, as Cyril tells us in his First Letter to Nestorius. Cyril’s response is eirenic in tone, if perhaps not in intent: he asks whether the texts that have been circulating among his monks and have been causing

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such a stir really are from the pen of Nestorius.25 Not surprisingly, given what we have seen in the Letter to the Monks, Cyril explains his decision to send it as a response to a pastoral crisis – a crisis, he can remind Nestorius, that began (he must mean in Constantinople) some time before he or Nestorius got involved with it, so it is not of his making – and as an attempt to head off an error that comes close to ‘refusing to confess any longer that Christ is God’. Evidently enough, he still sees this break with what he takes to be the plain sense of the Creed as the inevitable implication of refusing to say that Mary is theotokos, and theotokos continues to be the burden of his song, as it will be for years yet. is does not mean that Cyril has not learned anything more about Nestorius’ views, or has failed to nuance his own position. For the first time there is mention of another way in which refusal to say theotokos shows its disastrous implications: to refuse theotokos implies, he now says, not just what you do not say about Jesus Christ, but also what you do assert about him, namely that Jesus was only an instrument and a tool of divinity, and a man bearing God. Also new is the awareness that his hand has been strengthened by Celestine’s and the Roman synod’s condemnation of this error, and his communication of that news to Nestorius.26 What Cyril has still not yet learned, or taken account of, is any significant role the word ‘natures’ might play in the controversy in which he and the other two archbishops are engaged. Strong though the tone of the letter is, it leaves doors open for reconciliation with Nestorius, whether Cyril wanted a reconciliation, or was only seeming to want it to position himself rhetorically. As we have said, he suggests that perhaps the mischievous texts being circulated as from and by Nestorius are not authentic, in which case a simple repudiation would restore peaceful relationships.27 More importantly, he suggests an even more direct remedy: ‘For even if an utterance has escaped your lips, passing, so to speak, from mouth to mouth among the people, yet let it be corrected by study and deign to furnish a statement for those being scandalized, by you yourself calling the Holy Virgin the theotokos, in order that by taking care of those saddened and by having sound doctrine in the eyes of all we may bring it to pass that the people assemble in peace and unity of spirit.’28 As in the Letter to the Monks, then, Cyril still sees the doctrinal issue between himself and those associated with Nestorius in extremely simple terms: does one, or does one not, call the Virgin theotokos? Not 25. 26. 27. 28.

Cyril, First Letter to Nestorius 2, ACO I, I, 1, p. 24. Cyril, First Letter to Nestorius 3, ACO I, I, 1, p. 24. Cyril, First Letter to Nestorius 3, ACO I, I, 1, p. 24. Cyril, First Letter to Nestorius 3, ACO I, I, 1, p. 24, tr. FC 76, p. 35.

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just here at the beginning, but for several years more, calling her theotokos will be Cyril’s condition for peace, a condition by no means a priori impossible for Nestorius to meet. A priori impossible or not, Nestorius refused at first even to consider meeting Cyril’s condition. His first, brief letter to Cyril is sarcastic in tone, and does not yield an inch.29 He presents himself as someone whose arm has had to be twisted before he would even consider dignifying what he took to be Cyril’s indirect attack on him with a response, so distasteful did he find the prospect. He writes, he says, with virtually no expectation that the pain it has cost him to do so will prove to have been worthwhile. Cyril’s response, his Second Letter to Nestorius, on the other hand, was destined to play a central role in the history of doctrine far beyond what its author could have envisaged at the time: it would become a kind of conciliar document by virtue of being approved by the First Council of Ephesus as a reliable statement of orthodoxy, but it would also be exploited in doctrinal controversy because of a single subordinate clause involving ‘natures’ that, though initially it passed unnoticed, in 448 was to attract the attention of Antiochene strategists and become part of their astonishing plans. e future immense importance the Second Letter to Nestorius was destined to have depended solely on one crucial subordinate clause, crucial because it bears on the use of the word ‘natures’ that was to become so important later in the controversy. Let us remind ourselves once again that saying ‘two natures’, while it was always significant for Antiochenes, was a usage that, contrary to what is oen assumed, Cyril really had always been perfectly happy with as a way of pointing to the divine-human duality in Christ. He used it, however, not in any precise or technical way, but in an insouciant way consistent with his use of theological language in general (apart from what had been strictly defined by Athanasius and Nicaea). He believed that the faith of the fathers required saying both that there was one Christ and that there was a divine-human duality about him, but this was not something one understood or could explain; it was something you accepted on the fathers’ authority. It was an ineffable mystery made possible by God’s omnipotent power. Language was best used to point to it, not to define or understand it. It is in this context, and not in the context of what we know of later developments focusing on the exact meaning of expressions such as ‘two natures’, that we should assess the passage in question as it was used by Cyril. Having insisted, in the flow of argument summarized above, that the Word literally became 29. Nestorius, First Letter to Cyril, ACO I, I, 1, p. 25.

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man, uniting to himself ‘flesh animated by a rational soul’ in the one Lord and Son, Cyril goes on to say: ‘ough the natures joined together to form a real unity are different, it is one Christ and Son coming from them, not implying that the difference between the natures was abolished through their union, [so that] Godhead and manhood have given us the one Lord, Christ and Son by their mysterious and inexpressible unification.’30 In its context, the famous clause, italicized above, is intended to reject the charge that Cyril’s reading of Nicaea’s ‘was incarnate and became man’ inevitably entailed the Word’s being changed. Cyril is simply saying ‘No, it does not entail that. Neither the divine nor the human reality in Christ was changed.’ e Word in his omnipotence could do this, he is saying, without destroying the reality of his humanity or his divinity. Cyril just happens to use the word ‘natures’ here to assert the reality of the divine/ human distinction, but he could as easily have pointed to it with different words. In short, he here intends, by the words he just happens to choose at this moment, to assert the real oneness and the real duality of human and divine in Christ, both beliefs he whole-heartedly embraced. ere is no indication that he intended anything more than what he had been saying all along. ere is no indication that he understood, let alone intended here, the implications those with Antiochene training could and would insist followed from an admission of two natures, especially two natures aer the Incarnation, that is, when the Incarnation had taken place. It is doubly ironic that the crucial words do not occur in the main clause of the sentence, but in an almost casual subordinate clause. at is perhaps why, though it was to play a major role before long, its significance and potential for strategic deployment by the Antiochene side were not noticed for some time. In the meantime, it lay hidden in a letter that seemed to represent, as its author intended, the faith of the fathers in Cyril’s terms. It was intended to raise objections to Nestorius’ attack on theotokos, and to explain more fully why the Creed required saying theotokos. at being so, it was still the case that Cyril had asserted that there were two natures of Christ, and not just that; he had insisted that there were two natures of Christ after the Incarnation. ‘Natures’ is not the only word occurring in this letter that would later be invested with great importance. ere is also the word ‘hypostasis’, and the expression ‘by hypostasis’, sometimes translated as ‘hypostatically’. Unfortunately, the occurrence in this one letter both of ‘two natures’ and ‘united by hypostasis’ has tempted historians to read back into Cyril at this stage a later, Chalcedonian, conceptualization of Christ (he was one 30. Cyril, Second Letter to Nestorius 3, Wickham, pp. 6–7.

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by hypostasis, two by natures) that he did not actually hold. ‘We say rather that the Word by having united to himself hypostatically flesh animated by a rational soul … became man’, Cyril certainly does say,31 and ‘since … he united a human nature to himself hypostatically and was born from a woman, he is said to have been born according to the flesh’, but it is not easy to say what precisely he means by ‘hypostasis’.32 e fact that the expression ‘by hypostasis’ was not previously used by him – pace a widespread assumption that it was a favourite Cyrillian expression – is unfortunate. We are le to make out what it means here strictly from the context. What its appearance here does not do is mandate us to make out what it means from what others made of it in the sequel. e best reading of it comes in a footnote to this letter in Wickham’s collection of texts and translations: ‘e expression [by hypostasis] was favoured by Cyril at this stage of the controversy and probably introduced by him into the [christological] vocabulary. It had no technical meaning for Cyril and does not designate a type of union. It is equivalent to [natural union] and both expressions in Cyril have an exclusive and negative sense, that is, they rule out every explanation which Nestorius proposed of the union, without offering any explanation themselves.’ e rest of the footnote provides convincing evidence confirming the point from later explanations by Cyril himself of what he meant, and the reader is encouraged to see what Wickham says. What Cyril meant, he would say, whether he talked of a union ‘by hypostasis’ or of a union ‘by nature’, was a real union, not the sham union envisaged by Nestorius and the Antiochenes.33 We can be confident, then, that Cyril intended by the expression nothing more than what he had been saying all along in different words, that divine and human were really different, and really united in Christ. To say that the incarnation took place ‘by hypostasis’ was not meant to explain how the incarnation took place, just to assert that it really and truly did take place. It was on the order of other expressions qualifying in Cyril the affirmation of a real incarnation, adverbs such as ‘ineffably’ or ‘in some way’, no more, but also no less! ‘Hypostasis’ was never to become the explosive issue that ‘natures’ was, but it would be useful in the rhetoric that triumphed at Chalcedon. Nestorius’ Second Letter to Cyril takes the gloves off, a move some of his fellow-Antiochenes are shortly going to regret. Claiming the high ground of brevity, while accusing Cyril of ‘obscure and indigestible tediousness’, Nestorius tackles him on what is for him the key interpretive 31. Cyril, Second Letter to Nestorius 3, Wickham, pp. 6–7. 32. Cyril, Second Letter to Nestorius 3, Wickham, pp. 4–7. 33. Wickham, Cyril, p. 4, n. 6.

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crux, what the Creed, claimed by Cyril as his own, really means when it says that the only-begotten Son ‘was made flesh and became man, suffered and rose’.34 Cyril, he says, has failed to read that text with due diligence, and has mistakenly assumed it said the eternal Word of God was capable of suffering and dying.35 He himself offers a self-consciously more sophisticated way of interpreting the teaching of the fathers and of Scriptures. Picking, one would guess intentionally, the passage from Philippians that Cyril has made the scriptural centrepiece of his Letter to the Monks, Nestorius argues that Paul chooses to say that it is ‘Christ Jesus’ (the two words in that order) who humbles himself for a very good reason: while ‘Christ’ is, he says, a title ‘common to both natures’, ‘Jesus’ is intentionally added immediately aer it to specify that, in this case, it is the human nature that is meant.36 Paul is, on his reading, saying that it is Christ’s human nature that suffers. is method allows him – and the fathers and Scriptures, as he would see it – at once to distinguish divine and human natures and to assert their conjunction into one person, without having to say that God the Word was begotten of a woman or suffered. e lowly expressions in Scripture are always to be ascribed to the humanity of Christ, not to the divinity.37 at is why Mary should be called christotokos, and not theotokos. e divine and human are certainly united, but their union is a ‘relationship’ or ‘conjunction’ that does not justify attributing birth etc. to Christ’s divinity. Cyril would do well to ponder what Nestorius has said: to repeat, ‘[t]hese are the teachings handed down by the holy Fathers; they are the precepts of the Holy Scriptures.’38 He could have added ‘these are the precepts of the Nicene Creed properly understood.’ He could not more directly contradict Cyril. A more violent confrontation seemed inevitable. Cyril had told Nestorius in his first letter that Pope Celestine and the Roman synod had condemned him, as had an Alexandrian synod, yet Nestorius says not a word on the subject in his reply.39 Heretofore the 34. Nestorius, Second Letter to Cyril 1, ACO I, I, 1, p. 29, tr. FC 76, p. 43. 35. Nestorius, Second Letter to Cyril 2, ACO I, I, 1, p. 29. 36. Nestorius, Second Letter to Cyril 4, ACO I, I, 1, p. 30. 37. Nestorius, Second Letter to Cyril 6–7, ACO I, I, 1, pp. 30–31. 38. Nestorius, Second Letter to Cyril 8, ACO I, I, 1, p. 32, tr. FC 76, p. 47. Behind this so very different claim vis-à-vis the fathers to that made by Cyril lies the distinct Antiochene tradition of heroes who struggled against Arianism; they included most notably Diodore of Tarsus. 39. Celestine’ and the Roman synod’s ultimatum demanded that Nestorius condemn what he had been teaching and affirm the faith on the incarnation taught by ‘Rome, Alexandria, and the universal church’, or be expelled from the church. is vaguelyworded ultimatum probably should be construed as demanding simply the acceptance of theotokos, in much the way that Cyril’s mutterings about Nestorius’ ‘polluted teachings’

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controversy had been a matter of chiding correspondence between prelates, but solemn synodical and papal condemnation, perhaps especially at a moment when the papacy was really beginning to assert its authority over the universal church, was a different matter. Rome wanted action. e machinery of formal proceedings against Nestorius was in motion. Formidable forces were gathering, but not just on one side. Nestorius, we remember, though not a patriarch himself, and supported by only one of the three patriarchs, enjoyed special power and prestige by virtue of being the archbishop of the capital city, and pretty evidently the support of the emperor that characteristically went with that status.40 His Second Letter to Cyril shows that he also relished combat in the consciousness and confidence that Antioch’s superiority at theologizing was bound to win the day. He was not, perhaps, as conscious as he might have been of the superior weight Cyril carried with the church at large.

T A L P  S Nestorius was, in his combativeness, not typical of the members of the Antiochene cadre. Cyril now had Rome and a great many eastern bishops on his side, but what support did Nestorius get from the Antiochene cadre when theotokos was the issue? e answer was by no means clear. As we have suggested, Nestorius himself seems to have been dragged into the controversy in Constantinople, not out of deep conviction, but out of loyalty to his publicity-hungry Young Turks. at may be why Cyril, seemingly well informed about John of Antioch’s position, wrote to him warning him of what Nestorius was saying against theotokos, apparently in the belief that John might well side with him and against Nestorius.41 He was partly correct: John’s position was not fixed. He changed from an anti-theotokos position to its opposite, probably under the influence of his revered teacher, eodore of Mopsuestia, who for a while criticized the use of theotokos, then just about this time began to allow that, aer all, it was possible in good faith to use it in an orthodox way. John followed should be construed as referring specifically only to the refusal to say theotokos. It was characteristic of Cyril to style Nestorius’ teachings variously ‘polluted’, ‘evil’, and ‘poisoned’, as he did for example in one letter, without ever specifying what he found so objectionable about them: Cyril, Letter to Acacius of Beroea 6 and 8, ACO I, I, 7, pp. 149– 50. 40. It is hard to imagine that he would not by this time have received private assurances from the emperor of imperial support, given the latter’s harsh private instructions to Cyril, for which see below. 41. Cyril, Letter to those who Attacked him Verbally, ACO I, I, 1, pp. 92–93.

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the same path. He was still criticizing theotokos when Cyril’s request that the elderly Acacius of Beroea join him as an ally against Nestorius met with a negative response. e response cited a request from John to Cyril that shows where John stood on theotokos at that point: ‘[John of Antioch] is found to entreat your religiousness that your holiness, applying the understanding you possess, should modify the adventitious and unacceptable expression [theotokos] …’ 42 As we are about to see, John had abandoned that view by the time the year 430 neared its end and the Antiochene cadre met to discuss how they might deal with the conflict raging between Nestorius and Cyril. e strategy the cadre settled upon was one aimed at reducing those hostilities. It was presented to Nestorius by John of Antioch in a letter. Well aware of the opportunity presented by Cyril’s narrow focus on theotokos, and buoyed up by developments in the Antiochene camp that showed submission to theotokos to be possible in good faith, he attempted on the cadre’s behalf to enlist Nestorius in a peace offensive before that door was closed.43 ey were Nestorius’ friends and colleagues, schooled like him at the feet of eodore of Mopsuestia, but unlike Nestorius they were fearful as to the impending danger should no way of reconciling the parties be found. Aer all, against the majority support Cyril enjoyed they were a distinct minority, however clever or correct the arguments they might make. ere had, however, been developments that could conceivably make it easier for Nestorius to yield, John noted: eodore of Mopsuestia himself had ‘without hesitation’ renounced his objection to saying theotokos, and John himself had followed suit. e cadre had concluded that the term had either been used legitimately by the fathers, or at least had not been opposed by them. Could not Nestorius also follow suit, and head off the menace from Rome and Alexandria? at is the sense of what John suggests in the letter he writes to Nestorius: ‘But since our sins have greatly increased the Church’s troubles, I am forced to make known to your Holiness the letters that have recently been written to us from Rome and Alexandria …’ 44 Nestorius, he writes, should consult with 42. Acacius of Beroea, Letter to Cyril, ACO I, I, 1, p. 99, tr. FC 76, p. 77. It was, of course, entirely unlikely that Cyril could be convinced to change his mind on theotokos. is passage incidentally makes impossible Fairbairn’s attractive but in the end unrealistic theory to the effect that John of Antioch was actually close to Cyril in his views, and unaware that Nestorius was a radical more or less on his own in opposing the use of theotokos. See Donald Fairbairn, ‘Allies or Merely Friends? John of Antioch and Nestorius in the Christological Controversy’, JEH 58 (2007), pp. 383–99. John’s mention of the many patristic figures who used theotokos may suggest that he and others, like Acacius, had not previously been aware that the expression was traditional, not a Cyrillian innovation. 43. John of Antioch, Letter to Nestorius, ACO I, I, 1, pp. 93–96. 44. John of Antioch, Letter to Nestorius 2, ACO I, I, 1, p. 93.

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‘like-minded colleagues’, and ‘give them the freedom to explain what you need to hear, although it is not pleasant.’ 45 What the unpleasantness constitutes is not hard to discern: Nestorius knows perfectly well, and has himself admitted, that there is a pious way to say theotokos;46 still, he will look as though he is capitulating out of cowardice, just ‘to avoid a danger’,47 and furthermore will have to contradict himself in public on theotokos.48 is will certainly not be pleasant for him, John admits. Nonetheless, this is exactly what he must do, as his colleagues will tell him if he allows them to say what they truly think. On the plus side, will he not be accepting theotokos ‘for the sake of the stability and the peace of the world?’ Recognizing, obviously, how easy Cyril has, so far as he knows, made reconciliation by demanding only that Nestorius say theotokos, John begs him to comply: ‘[F]urnish a statement for those being scandalized, by you yourself calling the Holy Virgin theotokos …’ 49 John pulled out all the stops in his attempt to get Nestorius to recant while there was still time. Nestorius agreed to accept theotokos as orthodox if properly understood, he told John, but his suggestion that there be extended discussions, even a council, to say precisely how the term could be used in an orthodox way indicates that he was not ready to make the kind of submission Cyril expected.50 Timing was everything. e delay in fact doomed the initiative, for Cyril, having no idea of what was being proposed in backroom discussions between Nestorius and the Antiochene leadership, was at that very moment giving up on Nestorius. He had thought of ways to force him either to capitulate or to bring upon himself condemnation and deposition, either of which would have pleased him, whether out of malice or not.51 John of Antioch might declare, in a letter to Firmus, that the controversy had been ended by Nestorius’ submission to saying theotokos, but in the very same letter admitted that he had seen Cyril’s Third Letter to Nestorius; its taint of Apollinarianism made peace with its writer impossible for Antiochenes. e fiercer controversy was just beginning.52 Events would transform it from being a controversy between two bishops, Cyril and Nestorius, to being an extended battle between 45. John of Antioch, Letter to Nestorius 2, ACO I, I, 1, pp. 93–94. 46. John of Antioch, Letter to Nestorius 4, ACO I, I, 1, p. 95. 47. John of Antioch, Letter to Nestorius 3, ACO I, I, 1, p. 94. 48. John of Antioch, Letter to Nestorius 3, ACO I, I, 1, p. 94. 49. John of Antioch, Letter to Nestorius 3, ACO I, I, 1, p. 94. 50. Nestorius, Letter to John of Antioch, ACO I, IV, pp. 4–6. 51. Alternatively, if Cyril was using the theological issue only as a cover for his actual ambition to humiliate a rival, it was at this point that he could claim convincingly that there was no hope for Nestorius. 52. John of Antioch, Letter to Firmus of Caesarea in Cappadocia, ACO I, IV, pp. 7–8.

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one bloc of bishops led by Cyril, and another led by John of Antioch, as Nestorius’ importance dwindled, and the importance of Apollinarianism grew.

U  R  A In all likelihood Nestorius’ Second Letter inopportunely convinced Cyril that he absolutely refused to accept theotokos, and caused him to change tactics. We can see the tipping point being reached in Cyril’s correspondence with his ally, Juvenal of Jerusalem. He was, as we have said, giving up on trying to convince Nestorius to abandon the path he had embarked upon and to return to ‘the true faith’.53 All his exhortations had fallen on deaf ears, and Nestorius had seemingly admitted plainly that he said Mary was not theotokos. at, Cyril concluded in his usual way, meant that for Nestorius the Emmanuel was not God, and to say that was out-and-out heresy. Moreover, though Nestorius had ‘thought he would be able to carry clean away [the Bishop of Rome]’ by sending him letters and commentaries – more of the precise argumentation in whose power to convince Nestorius placed such misguided faith! – Cyril had been informed by letter that Celestine and the Roman synod had condemned Nestorius and his teachings, convinced by Cyril’s letter despite a first good impression Celestine had of Nestorius.54 Celestine’s letter contained a simple ultimatum to Nestorius: recant, or else.55 With Rome’s weight behind him, and in the conviction that there was virtually no hope (or, on the cynical view, no danger) of winning Nestorius over by arguing with him, Cyril bluntly proposed to Juvenal that they support Rome’s demand with their own ultimatum.56 eir ultimatum, the rejection of which would be taken as an admission of heresy, was to be ‘a letter according to a defined form to [Nestorius] and to the people’. It is important to recognize that ultimatums were in question, not condemnations: an ultimatum 53. Cyril, Letter to Juvenal of Jerusalem 2–3, ACO I, I, 1, p. 97. 54. e Roman synod was held August 11, 430. 55. Celestine, Letter to Nestorius 7, ACO I, I, 1, p. 77. Cyril has been blamed unfairly for Rome’s ultimatum, on the false assumption that it was he who had brought a distorted version of Nestorius and his teaching to Rome’s attention. It is rather the case that Rome, through John Cassian, had acquired a distorted version of Nestorius and his teaching on her own. It is entirely possible, even probable, that, had Rome not been willing both to accept Cassian’s shoddy dossier and to exercise what it saw as its authority in doctrinal matters by condemning Nestorius on its basis and throwing its authority behind Cyril, the latter would have adopted a quite different, perhaps conciliatory stance, and the ecumenical crisis of 431 might have been averted. 56. Cyril, Letter to Juvenal of Jerusalem 1, ACO I, I, 1, p. 97.

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le Nestorius the option of saving himself by capitulating.57 As Cyril told Juvenal, letters were to be written at the same time and to the same effect ‘to the … emperor and to all those in authority’ urging them to help get rid of ‘a wicked shepherd, if he does not submit to the counsels of everyone.’58 What we do not see here is any indication that Cyril wanted the emperor to get involved, nor was he telling Juvenal that he planned to ask for eodosius’ engagement. He cannot have been unaware of the Emperor’s support for Nestorius, which would pose a formidable threat if exercised through a council, given the extent of imperial influence over councils. He was saying that the church had made a decision in the proper way, a judgement reached by two of the three patriarchs, and backed up by their synods. What he expected – perhaps ‘hoped for’ would be more accurate – from the Emperor at this point was simply enforcement of his and Celestine’s ultimatums should Nestorius fail to submit. It was in the context of the proposed ultimatum and his concern that, if there was submission, it be airtight – perhaps, again on the cynical view, that it also be impossible for Nestorius to accept – that Cyril sent his Third Letter to Nestorius with its famous anathemas. e association of the third letter with the ultimatum makes sense. ough it has oen enough been considered an unjust and theologically clumsy attempt to impose a pre-conceived and radically ‘Alexandrian’ version of orthodoxy on the whole church, that interpretation fails to understand it in its historical context. It is the much more complete document, the ‘letter according to a defined form’, subscription to which would be required by Cyril’s and Juvenal’s ultimatum if Nestorius capitulated. e oen-ignored body of the letter parallels the anathemas, and it sets out in uncompromising terms what Nestorius was to ‘consent … and agree [to] … without deceit’,59 that is, the faith that went along with saying theotokos. In Cyril’s view it contained only ‘what we, all the bishops throughout the West and East, teachers and leaders of the laity [teach and think] …’ 60 He continues to present himself very much as the conservative defender of traditional orthodoxy untainted by innovation. is language echoed Celestine’s language in his ultimatum, but unlike Celestine, whose ultimatum only vaguely suggested an association of refusal to say theotokos with heterodoxy, and for whom acceptance of theotokos might well still have been all that was required of Nestorius, Cyril now, in the light of Nestorius’ revelation in his Second Letter to Cyril of a more complex heterodoxy, wanted more: 57. 58. 59. 60.

Cyril, Letter to Juvenal of Jerusalem 3, ACO I, I, 1, pp. 97–98, tr. FC 76, p. 79. Cyril, Letter to Juvenal of Jerusalem 3, ACO I, I, 1, pp. 97–98, tr. FC 76, p. 79. Cyril, Third Letter to Nestorius, ACO I, I, 1, p. 40, tr. FC 76, p. 90. Cyril, Third Letter to Nestorius, ACO I, I, 1, p. 34, tr. FC 76, p. 82.

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he wanted a repentant Nestorius to prove his orthodoxy more broadly by subscribing to a detailed account of the faith (in the body of the third letter), and by disowning (in the anathemas) beliefs which implied its rejection. It is possible to argue that, for the most part, Nestorius could theoretically have held his nose and subscribed to the Third Letter and its anathemas, but in fact it was a foregone conclusion that he would not and could not subscribe to it, and neither would his colleagues. He may have hesitated – if the accounts of those assigned to deliver the letter to him are to be believed, he was even uncertain at first how to respond to it: he told them to come back the next day for a response – but his hesitation was only momentary. When the commissioners returned, he refused to see them. e fact is that, for the Antiochene cadre, a fatal corner had been turned: the struggle against Cyril was no longer just a struggle by Nestorius, and by supportive members of the brotherhood, to extricate him from an attack he had in part brought on himself over a picayune issue. By the very language that Cyril had used to ensure that Nestorius could not slip past the ultimatum he had turned the struggle, for Antiochenes, into a struggle to defend the orthodox faith against what they had long suspected: Cyril’s unadmitted heterodoxy, his taint of Apollinarianism. For them, Cyril’s Apollinarianism was proven by statements in the body of the letter such as the following: ‘the very Word of God … underwent our birth’; was ‘seen as an infant in swaddling clothes’; was ‘united in nature’; ‘suffered in the flesh’. It lurked in his assertion that human and divine in Christ came together ‘just as … man is thought of as coming together from soul and body and yet is not twofold but one from both’, an assertion perilously close to Apollinarius’ ‘one nature’ of Word and flesh, which relied on the paradigm of human soul/body union becoming one nature. Likewise, Cyril’s assertion that ‘all the sayings in the gospels are to be attributed to a single person’, though it might seem to echo the Antiochene ‘one person’ as the presentation of two natures under one mask or prosopon, shows it is asserting a much more absolute union by equating ‘one person’ with ‘one incarnate hypostasis’. e same is the case for the assertion ‘the holy Virgin gave fleshly birth to God united to flesh hypostatically’.61 Certain passages in the anathemas also seemed to Antiochene ears dead give-aways: the third anathematized those who refused to speak of ‘a coming together in natural union’, the fourth attacked the Antiochenes’ key move against Apollinarianism: ‘If anyone ascribes to two persons or hypostases the sayings in the gospels … let 61. Third Letter to Nestorius, ACO I, I, 1, pp. 33–42, tr. FC 76, pp. 82–84, 87, 89.

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him be anathema’, and the twelh anathematized anyone who ‘does not profess that the Word of God suffered in the flesh and was crucified in the flesh and tasted death in the flesh …’ 62

62. Third Letter to Nestorius, ACO I, I, 1, pp. 40–42, tr. FC 76, pp. 90–92.

C 6

THE CONCILIAR SOLUTION1 anks to propaganda spread by both sides, Cyril’s quarrel with Nestorius could not fail to be recognized as a major problem by the emperor, especially now that that uncomplicated quarrel local to Constantinople, and focused on a minor point of theology and worship, that had given birth to the controversy, had evolved into an ideological struggle between two supremely important clerics, each of whom was determined to root out the other’s real or supposed heresy, and each of whom was recruiting supporters. He could not help but fear that the church so oen described as the glue that held the empire together might, in its fractiousness, become instead the agent of the empire’s dissolution. It was his chief responsibility, captured in the title he sometimes claimed of ‘ecumenical patriarch’, to hold both the church and the empire together. He was therefore bound to try to head off such dangers as this as quickly and thoroughly as possible.2 But how was the desired standing down from open warfare to be brought about? How was the division Cyril’s insistence on victory over Nestorius was bound to aggravate to be avoided?3 An emperor was possessed of one prerogative he might well imagine would prove ideal for the purpose: he alone could call, and in part steer the proceedings of, a general (ecumenical) council. e suggestion eodosius should call a council came from Nestorius, as Archbishop of Constantinople his natural advisor on church affairs. In his letter to John of Antioch responding 1. I am deepy indebted to Richard Price for making available to me his excellent translations of materials having to do with the councils that met in Ephesus. It is to be hoped that they will eventually see publication in their entirety. 2. eodosius had his own natural preference for Nestorius. It may be, even, that he was influenced, as many have supposed, to favour one side or the other by his wife, his sister, or his eunuch. When it came down to it, however, the ultimate decision was a matter of Realpolitik: the empire must survive intact, at whatever cost to the emperor’s conscience. He had, in the end, to put himself behind anything that would help that cause. 3. Had there been no council, the fact that Cyril was possessed of a pair of ultimatums from the two most senior patriarchs would not automatically have meant that Nestorius submitted, for though Constantinople was not yet a patriarchate, he was, as archbishop of Constantinople, a very powerful cleric, and he could count on the support of John, Patriarch of Antioch. If it came to a confrontation, the Emperor’s would have been the deciding voice.

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to the call to accept theotokos discussed above, Nestorius spoke of a ‘desired’ council which, as he envisaged it, would allow the Antiochene brotherhood to ‘settle both [the theotokos issue] and whatever else is necessary for the correction and assistance of the whole church, in accord and without offence, in such a way that everything that has been decided by a joint and universal decree will achieve the honour of being accepted with faith …’ ere was no mention of Apollinarianism at this point, though those in the know would have recognized what Nestorius meant by ‘whatever else is necessary for the correction … of the whole church …’ e eirenic process of achieving consensus on theotokos he proposed would, he thought, be an effective way even of overcoming ‘the Egyptian’s customary presumption’.4 at was one vision of the kind of council eodosius might be persuaded to call. An alternative vision for a council was proposed in a Petition from Basil the Deacon and other Monks, allies of Cyril: theirs was to be a ‘holy and ecumenical council’ that would ‘enable the priests by proclaiming the true faith to take preventative action before this wicked teaching [of Nestorius] circulates widely.’5 ese proposals were obviously radically opposed. Nestorius’ proposal looked optimistically to the future, proposing that the bishops work through their difficulties by discussion until a new consensus on the faith that included even Cyril could be reached. e monks’ petition, by contrast, wanted to turn back the clock: it aimed at restoring the orthodox past in the face of the disastrous present, and it called for a council that would take punitive action to squelch the spread of Nestorius’ novel teachings, and to ‘strengthen and restore what is tottering and ruinous …’6 It wanted exactly what Cyril had been fighting for, what his ultimatum was designed to accomplish. Which would be adopted when the decision was made to call a council? As it turned out, both, and neither! T E’ V   C eodosius came to the conclusion that he would have to call a council late in 430, no doubt in the light of the realization that Cyril’s Third Letter had radically stirred up what had already turned out to be a hornet’s nest.7 Nestorius was the first to propose a council, and was obviously not surprised when one was called, but Cyril apparently was. When he had 4. Letter of Nestorius to John of Antioch, ACO I, 4, pp. 4–6. 5. Petition from Basil the Deacon and other Monks, ACO I, I, 5, p. 10. 6. Petition, ACO I, I, 5, pp. 7–10. 7. e letter containing the imperial edict was dated November 19, 430. It called for a council to open June 7, 431: ACO I, I, 1, pp. 114–16.

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laid out for Juvenal his plan to tackle Nestorius and force him to recant or be deposed there was no mention of a council. Nor was there mention of any expected role for the Emperor, the caller of councils, except to say that they expected him to enforce Cyril’s and Celestine’s ultimatums. e tone of Cyril’s letter suggests, though, that he was not at all confident eodosius could be relied upon to support their actions. He and Juvenal would have to urge him, he said, ‘not to give a human being [Nestorius] preference over piety … but to favour the world with confirmation in the orthodox faith and to rescue the sheep from their evil shepherd if he does not yield to the advice of all.’8 His apprehension was, at it turned out, well justified. e council the Emperor envisaged was not at all the kind of council the monks had asked for, or that Cyril himself could ever have favoured. It was, strikingly, the very kind of council set out by Nestorius, echoing Nestorius’ own language. e sacra that convened the council focused on an eirenic agenda: the bishops were to meet in council and work out an agreement acceptable to all, just as Nestorius had suggested; there was no mention of accused or accuser, the terms in which Cyril saw the controversy. eodosius did not, of course, mention Nestorius’ role in suggesting a council, but made the decision to hold a council his own: he was the one who had decided a council was needed; he had been watching the controversy grow, had toyed with the idea of a council, hesitated, but now was writing to bishops everywhere ‘so that, as a result, the commotion arising from disputed matters may be resolved in accordance with the ecclesiastical canons, that improper developments may be corrected … Before the most holy council and the decree it is going to issue by common vote, no fresh step evidently is to be taken individually by anyone.’9 What he essentially wanted, in other words, was for the bishops to meet, discuss their differences, reach consensus, and so be reconciled with each other. Bearing in mind the fact that the council was suggested by Nestorius, and was organized according to his plan, it makes no sense to think that the person who most needed to be brought into line on eodosius’ view was Nestorius; it had to be Cyril. at the warring bishops were to reach consensus was made particularly clear, if indirectly, in the imperial edict: it directed Count Candidianus, eodosius’ representative, to allow no one to leave the council before it was concluded and agreement reached.10 Since all church councils were assumed to be guided by the Holy Spirit into consensus, no dissenting votes were possible. at 8. Letter of Cyril to Juvenal of Jerusalem, ACO I, I, 1, p. 97. 9. Imperial Letter of Convocation, ACO I, I, 1, p. 115. 10. ACO I, I, 1, p. 120.

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being so, the practice had developed whereby those who did not agree, instead of remaining for the vote, dried away, thus allowing the rest to vote ‘unanimously’, giving the appearance but not the reality of universal consensus. eodosius, by insisting on full attendance, was making it very clear that he wanted real consensus on the faith to replace contention, and that meant having every bishop’s subscription to a consensus document on record. Cyril’s uneasiness about eodosius was well founded; he had good reason to suspect the council was called essentially to bring him into line. e point was proved in a private letter sent to Cyril along with the sacra in which the Emperor did not mince words: ‘piety’, he informed Cyril, ‘attains sureness not through imperiousness but consent.’ He held Cyril responsible, he wrote, for the uproar that had arisen in the church contrary to true piety. Cyril had arrogated responsibility to himself, rather than pursuing peace through consultative processes. All that had to change. He was to ‘cease from everything distressing and disruptive, and come willingly to the investigation of the matters under scrutiny.’11 Only so, eodosius warned, could Cyril ‘recover our goodwill’. Cyril also got a tongue-lashing for having attempted to influence eodosius by means of separate communications with the empresses. Events had taken a sharp turn. It is not too much to say that the Council of Ephesus as proposed by Nestorius and set out by eodosius, with the accompanying enunciation of specific directions as to how it was to proceed, served not just the Emperor and Nestorius, but a more comprehensive Antiocheneinitiated, strategy against Cyril. First, it called for using eodosius’ insistence on peaceful discussion moving towards consensus to pressure Cyril into accepting formal agreement on theotokos without submission to the chapters. en, as they revealed when eventually they arrived in Ephesus (see below), the Antiochenes planned to go beyond eodosius: they were poised to use their vaunted superiority in theological argument to launch a concerted attack on Cyril’s Apollinarianism.

C’ S ings did not look promising for Cyril. Not only had he been scolded and warned in no uncertain terms; he had lost the initiative. e effect of the imperial call for a council was to annul his and Celestine’s ultimatums, whose momentum had seemed to make Nestorius’ downfall inevitable. 11. ACO I, I, 1, pp. 73–74.

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Now, Celestine had written suggesting that a peaceful solution was still preferable and possible if there was ‘the desired reformation’, showing an unwelcome eirenicism Cyril had decisively abandoned.12 He could not help but recognize that the council the Emperor wanted was intended to counter the divisive anti-Nestorius agenda he Cyril had in mind. at there would be a council was inevitable, and in the face of eodosius’ precise instructions, the only way forward for Cyril was to embrace the council and, if possible, find a way to take control of it and bend it to his will, while at the same time giving the plausible appearance of obeying the Emperor. is was the best he could hope for, if not expect. Luck did smile on him in one respect: eodosius had not thought deeply about the people he appointed to direct the council. Not very promising for his purposes was his appointment of Count Candidianus as his proxy, a man who had neither the experience, nor the gravitas, nor the political cunning needed to deal effectively with a man like Cyril or any of the leading Antiochene bishops, in a complex situation such as faced him. He could be bullied. He could be outmanoeuvered. On the ecclesiastical side things were even less promising for eodosius’ plans. Celestine was the senior prelate and the obvious choice to be president, but the Pope on principle did not attend councils in person; his legates could have served the purpose, but they were delayed by political unrest, and on the appointed day and for some time aer were still en route; John of Antioch was junior, and was not sufficiently trusted by Cyrillians; Nestorius was obviously impossible. at le Cyril, standing in for Celestine. As president, and in command both of the large bloc of bishops he brought with him and of others allied with him, he was well positioned to turn the council to his purposes despite eodosius’ instructions and warnings.

C  C e history of doctrine has tended to assume that the council sessions over which Cyril presided constitute the First Council of Ephesus, to consider it a legitimate ecumenical council, and to dismiss the rival council presided over by John of Antioch as an illegitimate would-be council or ‘conciliabulum’. You might more accurately say that the ecumenical, that is, universal, council called by eodosius never in fact met! Only partial councils met, one under Cyril and one under John; both had multiple sessions. Each of these claimed to be the real ecumenical Council of 12. Celestine, Letter to Cyril, ACO I, 2, pp. 26–27.

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Ephesus, and each anathematized the other. Technically neither of these could actually be the ecumenical council, because a partial council could not really by definition be ecumenical, since it represented only part of the oikoumene. Neither could make a clear case for ecumenical status, though both tried. e Emperor, by contrast, chose to treat all sessions as if they collectively could be counted as constituting the one ecumenical Council of Ephesus. at was to construct a council that never actually existed. Moreover, while the councils were officially closed by imperial sacra, the very fact that two councils were closed, not one, underscores the futility of the whole conciliar approach: nothing had been decided, and therefore there was nothing to be enacted or enforced by the Emperor. Effectively, the agenda of the ‘First Council of Ephesus’ as conceived of by eodosius really came to fruition of a sort, not in 431, but in 433 with the signing of the so-called Union between Cyril and John. In what follows we shall for the sake of clarity and simplicity call one of these partial councils ‘Cyril’s Council’, and the other ‘John’s Council’, identifying each session by date rather than number.13

F S/O S In addition to detailed instructions on how the council was to be directed, eodosius specified a firm opening date: June 7, 431. e bishops were in fact warned in the sternest possible tones that lateness or absence would not be tolerated; they were, they were told, being given ample advance notice so that there could be no question of claiming there was not enough time to complete the journey by the specified date.14 Nonetheless, the cadre of bishops led by John of Antioch failed to arrive on time (a possible explanation of which follows momentarily). e papal legates were also delayed. For two weeks Cyril and his allied bishops waited, but on June 21 Cyril took decisive and dangerous action. He decided to proceed with opening the council, this despite protests from sixty-eight of the bishops already in Ephesus, and despite frantic efforts to stop him on Candidianus’ part. On June 22 Cyril assembled the bishops for what was certainly the first session of what we are calling Cyril’s Council. But was it also, as he would claim, the legitimate first session of the ecumenical council eodosius had called? at remained an open question. 13. Cyril’s Council met June 22, July 10, 11, 16, 17, and 22, and August 31. John’s Council met June 26 and 29. 14. Imperial Letter of Convocation, ACO I, I, 1, p. 116.

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Candidianus vociferously opposed Cyril’s decision to go ahead, if impotently. His attempts to stop Cyril go without a single mention in the official minutes of the session sent roughly a week later to eodosius, a deliberate editorial move on the part of Cyril’s secretaries aimed at soening so far as possible news of Cyril’s disobedience to eodosius’ orders delivered through Candidianus. We have information about what those orders were, and about the scandalous scuffle that took place between Cyril and Candidianus over opening the council in a surviving document, the latter’s Protest (Solemn Adjuration) to the Council. It was posted part way through June 22 when word reached Candidianus that Cyril had just opened the council against orders the Count had issued that same morning.15 Candidianus had earlier made it clear, he said, what kind of council eodosius had in mind, a full ecumenical council that would enable the representatives of the whole church to settle matters ‘in peace and concord’. Now that Cyril and his large cohort had indicated their intention of meeting regardless, he pointed out that theirs could not help but be the partial kind of council eodosius had ruled out, since there were bishops in Ephesus opposed to opening the council at this point and who refused to attend, and since John of Antioch and his cohort had not yet arrived. As for the reading of the sacra without which an ecumenical council could not be opened, Candidianus was tricked into reading the sacra, and so into officially opening the council, by bishops on Cyril’s side who pretended they otherwise could not know what instructions eodosius had issued. He begged them, though he had read the sacra, and therefore officially opened the Council, nonetheless to wait until all the bishops had arrived before proceeding, so that the desired unanimous decision could be reached in the desired way. Cyril and his allies having driven him out ‘with violence and insult’, he was now warning them in the strongest terms to abandon this forbidden ‘fresh step’, to wait for the rest of the bishops, and to work with them by ‘common deliberation’. He was, he said, ‘not reluctant to repeat this yet again …’ because behind him stood the Emperor. Obviously, he failed to stop Cyril at this juncture. How eodosius would respond when news reached the court remained to be seen. Cyril must have braced himself for the worst. Cyril clearly took a daring step in ignoring, indeed running roughshod over, the weak and indecisive Candidianus. It was not just that the council was opened too soon, though it was shocking that that had happened, that it was contrary to imperial orders clearly communicated by an imperial official, and that no mention of it found its way into the minutes. e 15. Protest by Candidianus to the Council, ACO I, IV, pp. 31–32.

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minutes that do exist show that it took no time at all before the chief agenda item eodosius had laid out, and that Candidianus had reminded Cyril about so earnestly, was transformed: the council Cyril presided over on June 22 proceeded, not to the prescribed eirenic discussion between episcopal equals including Nestorius, but to the trial of Nestorius as if the Roman and Alexandrian ultimatums still stood. What was Cyril thinking? e only possible answer is that he intended to proceed as if the trial of Nestorius under the ultimatums, especially under the Roman ultimatum, was exactly what the emperor had called for. is interpretation is supported by how the primicerius Peter, Cyril’s creature, giving the opening statement of this session (a smooth summary of the Nestorian Controversy devoting the most space to the steps by which Celestine had become involved and had reached a decision to issue an ultimatum – ‘a certain decree’) emphasizes the Cyrillian bishops’ obedience in holding the kind of council they were involved in: ‘Since therefore by imperial and God-beloved command your holy council has been convened here, we of necessity inform you that we have the relevant documents to hand …’16 Cyril’s June 22 session’s emended acts were, the implicit claim was, the record of precisely the council eodosius had asked for. In the storm of correspondence that followed over whose council had legitimacy, each side was going to claim as its central point that the council it was in charge of was the official council, the council eodosius had asked for.17

C’ C, J : N   N A S For Nestorius and his allies, the council eodosius had called on their suggestion – Nestorius’ ‘desired council’ – looked at the outset altogether promising. ey could tell that Cyril had been put in his place by the emperor, whether or not they knew what exactly eodosius had said to him in that private letter. ere was every reason to think that the calling of the council annulled the Alexandrian and Roman ultimatums, and that therefore there would be an open discussion ab initio and among equals. In open discussion members of the Antiochene contingent were confident they could convince Cyril on his sole specific complaint, the refusal to 16. ACO I, I, 2, p. 3. 17. Candidianus seems to have foreseen the danger that Cyril might offer a radically different interpretation of what had happened, even perhaps claiming that Candidianus had connived with him. In his protest to the council, he warned that ‘I have sufficient evidence . . . that we have done nothing other than request [the kind of council eodosius ordered].’ Protest by Candidianus to the Council, ACO I, IV, pp. 31–32.

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say theotokos, that they were orthodox.18 For them, the really important issue that lay between them and Cyril’s camp was, as we know, Apollinarianism. ey were confident that Cyril was tainted by that heresy, and they could, they thought, prove it convincingly. e challenge for them was managing to appear to be having the civilized conversation with Cyril about theotokos that the Emperor expected of both parties. As events turned out, such conversations did not take place. Antiochenes were at the outset in open breach of imperial orders in only one respect: they failed to arrive on time. It is worth noting, however, that prospectively they stood in danger of calling down imperial censure upon themselves on other counts. at is so because, as the sequel so plainly revealed, they intended from the start, just as much as did Cyril, to turn the council into a heresy trial, only in their case the heresy they wanted to root out was Cyril’s reputed Apollinarianism. at second agendum was not at all likely to be engaged upon in the peaceful way eodosius intended. What the Antiochenes needed, we may suppose, if they were to establish their commitment to peaceful reconciliation with Cyril, was a convincing way to demonstrate that they really were at one with him on theotokos. If the demonstration could come entirely on their initiative, all the better. Once they had established their credentials as peace-makers, winning over even the obstreperous Cyril to affirming that they were at last orthodox and in communion with him, it would be safe to bring out their big guns against his Apollinarianism; in that way they would appear to be the peaceable party, while he was bound to fight back and show that he was not. e Antiochenes’ late and Nestorius’ early arrival, we propose, were part of a new strategy aimed at doing exactly that. e key is that the Antiochenes’ arrival was not just late; it was intentionally late. We know this much beyond a doubt. In the first place, despite vague excuses blaming their lateness on the illness of aged bishops and bad weather, the fact is that they le Antioch far too late ever to arrive on time, as has been convincingly established by George Bevan.19 Could we put the delay down to miscalculation or ignorance? Hardly. John’s staff could not have been ignorant as to how long it normally took to travel between Antioch and Ephesus, two of the greatest cities of the empire, between which there was a good deal of traffic. Could it be put down to carelessness? Again hardly. With a strongly worded imperial order to spur them on, and being eager in any case to enter the fray over issues 18. Recall Nestorius’ Letter to John of Antioch, with its confident claim that they, the Antiochenes, could prove exactly the right and wrong uses of that expression. 19. For the calculations on chronology, see George A. Bevan, The Case of Nestorius: Ecclesiastical Politics in the East, 428–451 CE (Ph.D. esis, University of Toronto, 2005), pp. 157–59.

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of profound importance to them, the Antiochenes would certainly have allowed time for delays. Could it be put down to late notification? No, there was ample notice. It is simply impossible to put their lateness down to accident or careless miscalculation. If these are not reason enough, there is, finally, John’s cryptic message to Cyril. e latter had delayed proceedings for nineteen days while he and his bishops waited for the Antiochenes – which shows it was not he who was trying to see the council held without them; he was in fact going to wait even longer. Oddly, two bishops arrived and handed him a message from John: ‘if anything happened to delay [the Antiochene bishops]’ Cyril was to proceed without them.20 is information is to a large extent repeated in a letter Cyril smuggled out of Ephesus to his allies in Constantinople.21 No one then or now has challenged the authenticity of this information: the Antiochenes really did tell Cyril to proceed without them. What lay behind this odd behaviour? Only one thing suggests itself: the Antiochenes intended to leave Nestorius on his own so that he could appear alone before the council, dramatically and in the sight of the assembled bishops embrace theotokos (as aer all he had agreed in his own circle he could in conscience do), and then embrace Cyril, so much to the latter’s startlement that he would surely be unable to do anything but accept the penitent with open arms. ere could not be a more convincing, or more touching, demonstration of the Antiochene circle’s wish to settle things peacefully – just the impression it would have been to their advantage to give. ere are additional reasons to suppose our analysis is correct. Looking back, we can say that the plan to stage Nestorius’ capitulation in this way is not wholly new, but a logical modification of the plan to give in on theotokos that had been worked out between Nestorius and the Antiochene leadership in late 430. It was not a fault in the plan, but in the timing, that had doomed that initiative. ere was no reason not to try again now. Looking forward to the Union of 433, we can say that this plan also fits with something we have yet to find out about Nestorius, his willingness in a really extraordinary act of self-sacrifice to be a kind of scapegoat in the greater Antiochene cause.22 e plan, if such there was 20. Council of Ephesus to Celestine: ACO I, I, 3, p. 6. 21. Memorandum of the Bishops in Constantinople, ACO I, I, 2, pp. 66–67: Cyril says he was expecting Nestorius to renounce his blasphemies and beg the council’s forgiveness, though he, Cyril, feared it would prove dangerous. is was just as John and the rest of the Antiochenes planned. Secondly, Cyril confirms in two places that the delay in the arrival of the Antiochenes was deliberate, and that John specifically urged him to proceed without them. It was Cyril’s guess that he did not want to witness Nestorius’ deposition. 22. See Chapter 5.

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– the evidence is all circumstantial – was never put into effect. e Antiochenes waited on the way as planned, but Nestorius decided in the end not to submit in this fashion, and refused to appear before Cyril’s Council. His reticence is understandable: the forces amassed against him were formidable and hostile, but his failure to do as planned meant that John’s contingent, when it arrived, met a very different and less pleasant situation than they had planned for, and acted accordingly.

C’ C, J : T T  N Cyril brilliantly managed the session, balancing the drive towards the deposition of Nestorius with the need to present this as the council eodosius wanted, a balancing act whose memory was polished, undoubtedly, by Cyril’s office in the preparation of official minutes to be sent to eodosius. In the semi-official proceedings before the session formally opened, Peter the primicerius neatly set out the course of the controversy so far, concentrating on Celestine so as to identify Rome’s ultimatum to Nestorius as the business for which eodosius had called the council, a crucial reconfiguration of the council, since eodosius had not specified who was targeted, but pretty clearly intended Cyril, for prosecution.23 ere followed, at Juvenal’s suggestion, the reading of the Imperial Letter of Convocation, twice flatteringly described as a ‘radiant prelude’, casting a very favourable light on the present session’s chances of fulfilling eodosius’ plans laid out in the letter.24 en came the extremely abbreviated account of the discussion on whether to proceed without the Antiochenes. e greatest editorial emendation of all in the case of the official minutes was, of course, the total omission here of what should have been a substantial passage recording the tussle with Candidianus over precisely this issue.25 What remained was a test of Cyril’s ability to construe eodosius’ instructions as not forbidding him, but actually mandating him, to proceed against Nestorius. ey have given him, he claims, a mandate to proceed, and to proceed immediately, a mandate further reinforced by 23. It was politic of Cyril to let the focus be entirely on Rome’s ultimatum, given that, as president of the session, he could hardly play the part of accuser too. 24. Peter’s account: Cyril’s Council, Session I, ACO I, I, 3, pp. 7–8; Juvenal, ACO I, I, 2, p. 8. 25. ere are many emendations and omissions in the minutes, prepared as they were by Cyril’s staff with an eye to eodosius, the prime intended reader. On this see omas Graumann, ‘“Reading” the First Council of Ephesus (431)’, in Price and Whitby (eds.), Chalcedon in Context, pp. 27–44. On the omission of the tussle, see p. 32. Graumann does not give sufficient attention to its import, however.

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Candidianus’ reading of strict instructions from the Emperor to the council as to punctuality; the bishops are going to ‘discuss the faith’, as prescribed by the Emperor; their council will be ecumenical, also as prescribed, that is, it will be ‘for the benefit for the whole world’.26 e first example of the case for legitimacy being made, the session proper could begin, though not without the nervous apprehension that there was no certainty the Emperor would be convinced, and complete certainty that Candidianus’ report would be extremely hostile. ough the session’s entire overt agenda under Cyril’s direction was taken up with the serious business of trying, condemning, and deposing Nestorius, its hidden agenda was at the same time to paint the proceedings as constituting the council eodosius had called. Accordingly, though the first order of business, and a legal requirement, was to call the accused three separate times, the bishop who reminded the council that this was the proper first order of business added that Nestorius should be present ‘so that piety may be confirmed by common decision and assent’, a further echoing of the words of eodosius’ instructions. Such was not to be.27 e reports of the three sets of commissioners who had gone to call Nestorius were dutifully heard. Nestorius had been informed in proper legal fashion that, if he failed to attend, the canons required that he be deposed from all clerical rank. He had made it clear that he refused to come aer the obligatory three summons.28 Juvenal of Jerusalem claimed that he refused out of a ‘bad conscience’, yet another echo of eodosian language (eodosius had in fact said that anyone who absented himself gave ‘proof of a bad conscience’, so the claim was apt).29 He proposed that they accept that Nestorius’ refusal to attend aer three summonses was final, and move on to the issue of the faith. ey began by reading the Creed of Nicaea, expressly for the purpose of comparing ‘statements about the faith’ with it to determine which are to be confirmed, and which rejected.30 is was followed, cleverly, by the reading of Cyril’s Second Letter to Nestorius, enabling Cyril and his fellow leaders of the council to have his letter’s orthodoxy confirmed in the best possible way, that is, as completely in accord with the Nicene Creed, by the viva voce votes of all the bishops one by one, a lengthy process, but a useful one for Cyril’s 26. ACO, I, I, 2, pp. 8–9. e mention of Candidianus’ reading of eodosius’ instructions to the council leaves readers, the most important of them being the Emperor himself, with the impression that Candidianus supported their decision to open the council then, a brazen trompe l’œil. 27. Cyril’s Council, Session I, 37, ACO I, I, 2, p. 9. 28. Cyril’s Council, Session I, 38–42, ACO I, I, 2, pp. 9–12. 29. Bad conscience: Imperial Letter of Convocation, ACO I, I, 1, p. 116. 30. Cyril’s Council, Session I, 43, ACO I, I, 2, p. 12.

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purposes.31 At the same time, the reading of that letter le the reader seeing the Nicene Creed through its lens. Moreover, as Graumann points out, the letter, by being read alongside the Creed, lost its original context and took on credal character.32 e reverse happened with Nestorius: standing in the shadow of the Creed of Nicaea, and not just in its shadow, but in the shadow also of Cyril’s unacknowledged interpretation of the Creed, his statement of faith in his Second Letter to Cyril stood no chance.33 Again viva voce individual votes were used to unanimously anathematize Nestorius, appropriate treatment of a heretic.34 What happened next seems not to have been properly understood, and the text therefore has wrongly been described as disordered. Actually, things were proceeding according to a rational, step-by-legal-step plan. Pronouncing anathema against a heretic on the basis of what he had written or said in the past, as had just happened to Nestorius, was an appropriate first step, but it was far from being the end of the process. All that had been proved against Nestorius so far was that he had not believed in an orthodox fashion in the past, as the documents produced purportedly proved. ere remained what Nestorius might or might not believe in the present.35 Had he repented since writing that letter? Did he repent now? By way of addressing this essential issue – what did Nestorius currently think? – the next step introduced the until-now-ignored ultimatums of Celestine and Cyril, Celestine’s in his Letter to Nestorius, and Cyril’s in his Third Letter to Nestorius.36 (is was how and when the Third Letter entered the official record of conciliar documents, justifying later claims on the Antiochene side that they had been inserted in the minutes). eir introduction followed a set pattern clearly having to do with 31. Clever Positioning: Graumann, ‘“Hearing”’, passim; Reading of the letter: Cyril’s Council, Session I, 44, ACO I, I, 2, p. 13; Vote on harmony with the Creed of Nicaea: ACO I, I, 2, 45, pp. 13–31. 32. Graumann, ‘“Hearing”’, p. 37. 33. We may recall that Cyril intended to introduce no novelty whatsoever: his faith was, in his view, identical with that of the Creed. Yet a modern cannot fail to see that his was one of several possible interpretations. As Graumann, ‘“Hearing”’, p. 37, says: ‘[Nestorius] too quotes the Nicene Creed, and his letter is as much an exposition of it as Cyril’s.’ 34. Cyril’s Council, Session I, 48, ACO I, I, 2, pp. 35–36. e various statements of anathematization are collected in the minutes. 35. e pattern at a synod of proving heresy in the past, then in quite a distinct second step proving it in the present, is to be observed in the trial of Eutyches, at which the prosecutor, Eusebius of Dorylaeum, insisted that he be given his rightful opportunity to prove Eutyches both had been, and still was, a heretic. e temporal order is reversed, but the distinct separate steps involved are obvious, and never questioned by the participants. See ACO II, I, 1, 423–26, pp. 131–32. 36. Letter of Celestine to Nestorius, ACO I, 2, pp. 7–12; Third Letter of Cyril to Nestorius, 1, ACO I, I, 1, pp. 33–34.

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the appropriate legal formalities; Cyril was obviously determined that Nestorius should have no grounds for appeal. Accordingly, first the two key letters were read to the council; then they were officially read into the proceedings; then the fact that they had been duly delivered to Nestorius was proved by the affidavits of witnesses.37 Only then could the vital questions be posed and answered: ‘Did Nestorius do as the letters required? Was he now orthodox?’ A string of bishops witnessed under oath, and in the consciousness that their statements would be included in the minutes, that when they approached Nestorius, and had words with him, he had not only not done what the letters required, he had refused to accept the documents, had in fact argued for his old heretical beliefs both in and out of church. eir testimony established, as one of the witnesses put it, that ‘not only did he teach these things before receiving the documents, but after receiving them he has taught far worse, ‘til this day’. Nestorius was, the claim went, clearly unrepentant, still guilty of heterodoxy. To clinch the point that Nestorius was a teacher of blasphemous novelties, there followed a florilegium from the fathers, and a selection of texts from Nestorius’ writings to compare with it.38 With this the case against Nestorius closed. e editors of the minutes here inserted a letter from the absent Capreolus of Carthage to neatly sum up the session’s achievements. It rejected, the letter said, ‘by the power of ancient authority teachings that are new … lest those that the church formerly warred against … should, through the pretext of a second discussion, appear to recover the voice that had formerly been silenced.’ It illustrated, for future generations, the enduring authority of the catholic faith, to which every orthodox believer must submit, and ‘confirm the beliefs he has formed not by his own authority but by the decision of the ancients …’39 It was a deeply Cyrillian session. Cyril and his council took no convincing as to Nestorius’ heterodoxy. It was undoubtedly with crocodile tears at his sad loss to the faith that they proceeded, recording each vote in writing, to declare Nestorius ‘excluded from episcopal dignity and all priestly assembly.’ If there had ever been a possibility of co-operation between Cyril and Nestorius, the heat of the controversy had eliminated it.

37. ACO I, I, 2, 49–50, pp. 36–37. 38. Texts of the fathers: ACO I, I, 2, 54–59, pp. 39–45; texts of Nestorius: 60, pp. 45– 52. 39. ACO I, I, 2, 61, pp. 52–53. I accept Graumann’s suggestion (‘“Hearing”’, pp. 38–39) that the editors framed the session with Capreolus’ letter to present Cyril and his council as the humble guardians of tradition.

C 7

FIRST RESPONSES e first responses that mattered most were the Emperor’s, and that of his representative, Candidianus. ere was also the oddity of Nestorius, not yet officially deposed, indeed the one the Emperor had intended the council to vindicate but who had, instead, been condemned. eodosius was certain to be outraged; how could he possibly be convinced that a trial had been necessary, when what he had called for was concord and cooperation? It was therefore not just a moot point, but the crucial point, whether he would ratify Cyril’s Council’s decision, for two things were essential before any decree was considered to be in effect: it needed to be ratified ‘by both conciliar letter and imperial enactment.’1 Cyril had no reason to doubt the conciliar letter was virtually in his hands, but he needed also the imperial enactment. ough to obtain that he had already taken steps during the first session of his Council, he made one last attempt to present what he had done in the best possible light as he called for the vote: Beyond everything else, since the very honourable Nestorius wished neither to obey our citation, nor to receive the very pious bishops whom we had sent to him, we have been forced to come to an examination of the impieties said by him; and since, both by the letters and writings which we have read, and by the sermons which he recently gave in this city … we have found him to think and to preach impious things; forced both by the canons and by the letter from … Celestine … we have come … to this lamentable sentence against him …2

In short, having followed the very course eodosius had wanted the bishops to avoid, having deposed Nestorius, and having put the church and the empire at risk of schism, Cyril and his council found it politic to cast themselves as helpless victims of circumstance, forced against their will to act as they had by Nestorius’ perverse refusal to appear before them. 1. e phrase ‘by both conciliar letter and imperial enactment’ occurs also in one of the Antiochenes’ letters to their allies in Constantinople: Letter of the Easterners at Ephesus to those at Constantinople, ACO I, I, 7, 4, p. 78. 2. ACO II, II, p. 54.

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Even as Cyril’s staff began to massage the minutes of his council before sending them to the Emperor, Candidianus and Nestorius were fighting rearguard actions of their own. Nestorius wrote to eodosius explaining that he had wanted to be part of exactly the council eodosius intended, had even agreed to meet peacefully in council with Cyril’s people whenever Candidianus could arrange it, but Cyril and his allies had rejected that plan, and had met on their own, contrary to imperial orders, in a council that was not at all what eodosius had in mind. He begged eodosius to reconstitute the council with just metropolitans in attendance, each accompanied by two bishops (the model eodosius had originally prescribed). is would have reduced the Alexandrian contingent’s size considerably. Failing that, Nestorius went on, eodosius should send everyone home, that is, he should abandon the whole idea of settling the controversy by means of a council.3 On June 23, the out-manoeuvred Candidianus tried again to recover from the disaster (for him) of Cyril’s Council, and gain – one can hardly say regain – control in Ephesus. Cyril’s Council could not be made to disappear, but Candidianus could and did issue instructions that no one was to hold a ‘partial council’ or meet with anyone holding such a council, which amounted to a cease-and-desist order against Cyril. He could and did make threats: the Emperor, he said, would consider any such would-be council invalid and illegal. Instead, everyone was to await the arrival of the representatives from Antioch and Rome.4 He could and did protest that Nestorius’ deposition was annulled on the strength of reports that some bishops had signed the deposition under compulsion.5 He could and did try to isolate the parties so that news of the catastrophe did not get out, while the court figured out what to do about the situation, forbidding them to communicate with anyone outside Ephesus. He could and did report to eodosius, as we know he had done by June 29, when eodosius wrote to the council citing ‘information provided by … Candidianus’ about Cyril’s flouting of imperial orders. Predictably, Candidianus had listed partial assembly, failure to reach agreement by consultation, and acting out of enmity.6 He could and did send the Emperor a copy of the notices as to Nestorius’ deposition that were being posted by Cyril’s partisans all around Ephesus.7 Despite the announcements, in posters and otherwise, of Nestorius’ deposition, 3. Nestorius, Report of Nestorius to Theodosius II After the Session of 22 June, ACO I, I, 5, pp. 13–15. 4. Instructions from Candidianus to the Council (23 June), ACO I, IV, p. 33. 5. Protest by Candidianus After the Deposition of Nestorius, ACO I, IV, p. 33. 6. Theodosius II to the Council (29 June), ACO I, I, 3, pp. 9–10. 7. Session of the Easterners of 26 June, ACO I, I, 5, pp. 119–24.

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he was never officially deposed. For one thing, the decree of deposition never received the imperial enactment necessary to make it official, and for another, he resigned his position and retired to his monastery on the Emperor’s insistence, which meant he had no rank to be deposed from. eodoret might complain a bit later on that eodosius and the court refused even to hear of Nestorius out of ‘a unique antipathy to his name’, but the real reason is surely clear in what the Emperor was quoted as protesting: ‘Let no one say anything to me about that man: his case has been settled once and for all.’8 eodosius was simply loathe to reverse himself on this one decisive action he had been able to take, the one piece of business accomplished. As soon as the session was concluded, Cyril’s attempts to justify what he had done got immediately into high gear. Clearly intending to ensure that Nestorius’ downfall remained a fait accompli, his council notified his many allies among both the clergy and the laity of Constantinople of Nestorius’ deposition, and explained that Nestorius had ‘separated himself from the assembly … and did not dare to appear because of his bad conscience.’9 By appropriating the exact language of eodosius’ warning about having a bad conscience he was, no doubt, making a further subtle claim that his council was the Emperor’s intended council. He wrote to clergy, laity, and monastics in Alexandria rallying their support.10 Before the end of June, despite the fact Candidianus had forbidden him and his Council to make contact with the outside world, he established contact with his clerical allies in Constantinople, evading the imperial ban on communications by sending a message to them concealed in the staff of a beggar. His appeal for his allies’ support was eminently successful; it demonstrated to eodosius that Cyril had such massive support that he and what he had done could not be lightly dismissed. Monks from ‘all the monasteries …’, he reported, ‘together with their archimandrites’, accompanied by ‘a great congregation of the orthodox’, and led by the revered Dalmatius, marched to the imperial palace. ere they submitted to eodosius Cyril’s letter, an account of what he had done in Ephesus addressing the predictable issues: John’s late arrival; the proper summoning of Nestorius; the examination of his writings for heresy. e letter also introduced a new piece of evidence against Nestorius, at least new for this audience: Cyril and his friends had obtained a copy of John’s Letter to 8. Letter of Theodoret to Alexander of Hierapolis, ACO I, I, 7, 3, p. 80. 9. Notification of Nestorius’ Deposition to the Clergy of Constantinople, ACO I, I, 2, p. 65; Letter of the Council to the Clergy and People of Constantinople, ACO I, I, 2, p. 70. 10. Cyril, Third and Fourth Letters of Cyril to the Clergy and Laity of Alexandria, ACO I, I, 1, pp. 117–19.

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Nestorius and claimed (selecting certain passages out of context, one must observe) that in it John ‘firmly rebukes [Nestorius] for introducing new and impious doctrines into the churches and undermining the teaching … from the holy fathers and apostles.’ e real point of introducing this letter, and of having the monks present it to eodosius, emerges at the end: Cyril has learned that Candidianus has sent eodosius a report on his council’s first session, he has every reason to suppose it to be very hostile, and he wants to counter it. On a more positive note, he may have concluded that Candidianus would be in very bad odour with eodosius for letting things get so out of hand at Ephesus, something that might make eodosius less likely to take his report seriously.11 As for actively countering the report, his tactic was to have his allies explain that eodosius should not pay any attention to the minutes because they had not yet been finalized, but that they would be forwarded to the Emperor along with a report – as soon as the ban on communicating was lied and it became possible to deliver the documents.12 His evident goal was to get the Emperor to delay a response until he had read the edited minutes – edited in Cyril’s favour – and the report. e report tried to establish, as we would expect, that Cyril’s Council had, far from being the act of outrageous disobedience Candidianus was bound to have styled it, followed eodosius’ instructions, was in fact the council he had called. It laid out what was to be the classic position of the Cyrillian camp in the war of words that followed: the turmoil caused by Nestorius’ teaching was surely what the Emperor had called the council to address, which Cyril’s Council did by examining and condemning Nestorius; a time and place had been specified, and they had dutifully arrived as commanded; John of Antioch and his allies had not arrived on time, but had urged them to go ahead, which they did; Nestorius refused to appear when summoned; since, as the Emperor had said, a delay indicated a bad conscience, the Council went ahead and dealt, as ordered, with the faith, citing the creed and finding Cyril’s Second Letter to be in accord with it, whereas Nestorius showed himself not to be of the same orthodox faith; 11. Candidianus was certainly expecting the worst of eodosius’ reaction to his report. He tried to excuse his extraordinary second reading of the sacra to the Antiochenes aer having read it to Cyril’s Council with the limp claim that he did so because he did not want to give ‘an excuse for indiscipline’, whatever that might mean, and claimed that the bishops sympathetic to Nestorius who were already in Ephesus would attest to his having done everything ‘according to proper procedure’: Session of the Easterners of 26 June, ACO I, I, 1, pp. 119–24. 12. Candidianus’ report: Theodosius II to the Council (29 June), ACO I, I, 3, pp. 9–10; Cyril’s report to accompany minutes: Report from the Council to Theodosius II, ACO I, I, 3, p. 5.

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therefore they deposed him; their verdict, they pointed out, was supported by Rome; Nestorius’ writings, they urged, should be confiscated.

J’ C It is an intriguing question what Cyril expected of the Antiochene contingent when it arrived. It may seem merely common sense to suppose that, though his target had from the first been only Nestorius, with the vague addition of ‘and those who think as he does’, Cyril was aware of the closeness of the Antiochene brotherhood’s bond and its support for Nestorius. In that case, he would have expected them to be outraged. Perhaps, though, the brotherhood’s bond was not a matter of public knowledge, and he could let himself believe that they, when they arrived, would accept Nestorius’ deposition. He could have supposed that Nestorius was an exception among Antiochenes, working more or less alone. is would fit with the elders’ unease about the Young Turks who ‘went public’ and dragged Nestorius into the spotlight. It would fit, too, with Cyril’s seemingly genuine sense of having been betrayed by John when the latter, upon his arrival, instantly and abruptly set up his own counter-council and, with plans to restore Nestorius in ruins, turned immediately to an attack on Cyril’s Apollinarianism. Unaware of the failed Antiochene plan to have Nestorius recant, Cyril could have no premonition as to their frustration and anger, which would be turned immediately on him. If he did think that Nestorius was a lone wolf, that would fit with his residual conviction as to John’s essential orthodoxy in the clash with ‘Nestorians’ over the Union of 433.13 It would explain, too, how it came about that John’s Letter to Nestorius, to us pretty clearly illustrating the close bond between Antiochenes, could have been interpreted by Cyril’s partisans in Constantinople as reprimanding Nestorius for innovation.14 Whether Cyril was surprised by the reality of what John stood for or not, he must have been at least somewhat surprised when John, on the very day (June 26) of his contingent’s arrival in Ephesus, instantly set up a rival to Cyril’s Council that not only met, but moved decisively to condemn Cyril and his chapters. If, as we suggest, they expected to find Nestorius and Cyril dramatically reconciled, they had good reason to feel shocked and betrayed when they found instead that Nestorius had been 13. See chapter 8. 14. Memorandum of the Bishops in Constantinople, ACO I, I, 2, p. 67. is is the very case proposed, in modern times, by Donald Fairbairn, ‘Allies or Merely Friends? John of Antioch and Nestorius in the Christological Controversy’, JEH 58 (2007), pp. 383–99.

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condemned. e first item on their agenda being, therefore, cancelled, they naturally moved to the second item, the elimination of Cyril’s Apollinarian chapters, and that meant going on the attack without the display of a previous eirenicism. Since Nestorius no longer served John’s tactical purpose, was indeed a distraction and an impediment, tainting John and his allies with the heresy for which Nestorius had just been condemned, and weakening their rhetorical position, it made no sense at this point to attempt anything vis-à-vis Nestorius. Instead of wasting time on him, John’s cadre of some thirty bishops immediately constituted itself a council sitting in judgement on Cyril and what he believed. e deliberations with which John’s Council opened included Candidianus’ sad recitation of what had happened at Cyril’s Council.15 John, acknowledging that the sacra had been read to Cyril’s Council – he could not conceal that problematic fact – asked Candidianus to now read the sacra to the assembled bishops of his council as well, thus establishing the first grounds for the claim that this was the council eodosius had called, not Cyril’s: it had been properly convened.16 Contrasting his council’s orderly behaviour with the ‘tumult and disorder’ of Cyril’s Council, John boldly indicated that his council was ready to fulfill the Emperor’s plan; they awaited only Candidianus’ communication of his orders.17 He thereby made a second claim: his orderly and well-behaved council had, unlike Cyril’s council, the dignified conciliar character eodosius had called for. Had he not insisted on order and good behaviour? Candidianus added some additional damning information against Cyril: he had learned on June 22, he said, that Nestorius had been deposed, which information he had forwarded to the Emperor, but he had tried to prevent the deposition’s publication. He was too late; the town criers were heard announcing the news throughout the city. He had also ordered Cyril’s contingent not to proceed until John’s arrived.18 John quickly realized that, given all this evidence, a good case could be made for declaring Cyril’s Council illegitimate on legal grounds. Had it followed legal procedures? Did it follow the canons and other church laws? Had it obeyed the imperial letter? Had it reached its conclusions ‘in the presence of all’ and aer ‘appropriate interrogations?’ Had Nestorius’ heresy been proved? Candidianus’ testimony revealed that the answer to these questions had to be a resounding ‘No!’19 Moreover, John announced, he and his colleagues had been brutally 15. 16. 17. 18. 19.

Session of the Easterners of 26 June, ACO I, I, 5, 1–15, pp. 119–23. Session of the Easterners of 26 June, ACO I, I, 5, 2–4, pp. 119–20. Session of the Easterners of 26 June, ACO I, I, 5, 5, p. 120. Session of the Easterners of 26 June, ACO I, I, 5, 1, p. 119. Session of the Easterners of 26 June, ACO I, I, 5, 3, p. 130.

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treated. At this point Candidianus withdrew, as was the rule when it came to a discussion of the faith, leaving John to preside over a council of bishops with the groundwork already laid for claiming that it was the true council called by eodosius, while Cyril’s Council was not. John’s Council quickly revealed its deeper agenda. Certainly it recounted how Cyril’s Council had failed to follow the Emperor’s orders, which it summarized as follows: ‘Out of a bad conscience they have disrupted and confounded everything, filled the affairs of the church with confusion, treated the pious letters with contempt, and trampled on the laws of the church …’ e real point, though, was in what followed: Cyril’s Council committed these crimes, not in order to condemn Nestorius – there is no mention of him here, another indication that his case had been sidelined – but ‘to prevent an examination of the heretical false doctrine that we found in the chapters sent previously to the imperial city … of which most agree with that of Arius, Apollinarius and Eunomius.’20 For John and his bishops Cyril’s Apollinarianism was the true and only real topic the council had been called to deal with. at is what the bishops present needed to fight against ‘lest any be seduced by the heretical chapters …’ ey needed to fight for a decree against anyone seduced by the chapters.21 It was le to John to hold both charges together: Cyril and Memnon, archbishop of Ephesus, should be deposed both for the lawlessness they had originated, and for the heresy of the chapters, and those they had seduced should be excommunicated. We also find here the first instance of a new, and to Cyril no doubt surprising, wrinkle in the charge of disobedience to imperial orders. In this case Cyril’s Council’s appending of the Second Letter to Nestorius to the Creed of Nicaea, which had seemed such a coup, was used as evidence against him: adding the letter constituted the dread innovation everyone condemned. Persons seeking to be reconciled with his party, John says, will need to profess the Creed of Nicaea – ‘introducing nothing different from it or alien to piety’.22 John’s party had cleverly found a way to paint Cyril, the great conservative enemy of innovation of all kinds, as the innovator against whom stood the Antiochene defenders of the pure faith of the fathers of Nicaea, exactly the reverse of what Cyril claimed to do and to be! What John then proposed was that, for all the reasons listed, Cyril and Memnon should be deposed, and their sympathizers excommunicated until they confessed their error, anathematized the chapters, professed the faith of Nicaea alone, and then met with those 20. Session of the Easterners of 26 June, ACO I, I, 5, 11, p. 121. 21. Session of the Easterners of 26 June, ACO I, I, 5, 11, p. 121. 22. Session of the Easterners of 26 June, ACO I, I, 5, 12, p. 122.

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of John’s Council to examine matters of faith and confirm the faith as directed by the Emperor’s instructions. e Council issued a decree to exactly the same effect.23

W  T Already by late June of 431 matters had deteriorated significantly. Instead of one council, problematic as even that one council was, the church found itself sharply divided by rival claims to legitimacy on the part of two councils. Each council was waiting in the hope that the powerful third party, eodosius, would confirm it, depose and anathematize its chosen heretic(s), and invalidate its rival; everything hung on the Emperor’s decision, and all eyes were fixed on Constantinople. What would eodosius decide? e situation was made all the more complicated by the fact that the councils and their presidents were placed under house arrest and incommunicado in Ephesus to contain the conflict, and to allow the Emperor time to decide what to do. At the same time negotiations required that there be open channels of communication between a complex set of recipients. Each council already had its clerical, monastic, and lay allies in Constantinople, as we have seen in the buildup to the council, and more arrived. For example, among the clerical allies of Cyril was his Synkellos, and among the Antiochenes’ lay allies was the energetic Count Irenaeus. Each council eventually had a legation of some eight bishops who acted as intermediaries between the court and the councils. e Emperor had his representatives in Ephesus. In the background in Constantinople were ‘high officials’. All needed to be in touch, engage in negotiations, find out what was going on, submit petitions, etc. ere thus followed a remarkable period characterized by a flood of documents so numerous, in fact, that the Council of Ephesus has a justified claim to being the single best-documented event of antiquity. While eodosius hesitated, the councils continued to meet, but separately. One constant was that each claimed to be the true council eodosius had called. Another was that each was intent on the condemnation of what it saw as heresy, Cyril’s of Nestorius’ heresy, John’s of Cyril’s Apollinarian dogmas supposedly lightly concealed in the twelve chapters of his Third Letter to Nestorius. e grounds on which either side might choose to argue for its legitimacy included procedural correctness, obedience to imperial orders, good behaviour, etc. Each council was also actively 23. Session of the Easterners of 26 June, ACO I, I, 5, 12, pp. 121–22, and 15, pp. 122–23.

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raising challenges to the other’s legitimacy, offering the Emperor grounds for not validating it. As time passed, the claims and strategies that had emerged in the beginning were refined, and new claims and strategies put into effect. John’s Council elaborated the case against Cyril on the score of Apollinarianism, for one thing, pointing to a supposed conspiracy: Cyril, they claimed, had made a pact with Memnon to together raise a turmoil – they meant Cyril’s Council – superficially appearing to be about Nestorius, but that was really a cover story. If it was only a cover story, it made Cyril’s Council no real council, but it actually had a dangerous purpose, to draw attention away from Cyril’s Apollinarianism and Memnon’s laxity.24 John’s Council, on the other hand, was dealing with the real issues; it was a real council, not a sham. John’s Council made something, too, of the rhetorical claim that their opponents, by declaring universal anathema ‘to all who do not say …’, had effectively anathematized all the saints and fathers, but that was a claim made on the other side too.25 More substantially, answering the question why, upon their arrival in Ephesus, they had so hastily and combatively tried and convicted Cyril’s Council, they protested: ‘It is not doing anything blameworthy (perish the thought!) nor hot-headed, as someone might allege, but is giving priority to the defence of piety in danger.’26 e sense of impending danger on the part of John’s Council increased over time. ey complained, more and more urgently, that they were being persecuted in Ephesus, and requested that they be moved to a new, safer, venue.27 ey attempted more direct contact with the Emperor by sending documents with their chief lay champion, Count Irenaeus, but their greater hope was that eodosius would grant their request that they be permitted to come to Constantinople, where they could argue their case in safety. ey had become convinced, they said, that only direct imperial intervention could resolve the conflict.28 In the process of highlighting their restraint in not sending bishops to Constantinople, but only letters, they reveal that their Cyrillian opponents were being allowed to send an episcopal delegation, a sign of a shiing of imperial favour away from John’s Council to Cyril’s under pressure from the latter’s intense propaganda war and from demonstrations of widespread support, especially in Constantinople. 24. Letter of the Easterners to the Laity of Constantinople (2), ACO I, I, 5, 2, pp. 128– 29. 25. 26. 27. 28.

Third Report of the Easterners to Theodosius II (3), ACO I, I, 5, 3, p. 130. Second Report of the Easterners to the Emperors (1), ACO I, I, 5, 1, p. 126. Third Report of the Easterners to Theodosius II (3), ACO I, I, 5, 3, p. 130. Fifth Report of the Easterners to Theodosius II (2)–(3), ACO I, I, 5, 10, p. 134.

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Cyril’s Council continued the intense propaganda war it had been waging on behalf of its own legitimacy, repeating the old arguments, but it now concentrated on a new point of attack, the illegitimacy, as they claimed, of John of Antioch’s Council which, if the case could be made successfully, would leave Cyril’s Council in possession of the field. John’s Council had chosen to treat Cyril and Memnon as the villains, with the rest of the bishops in Cyril’s Council their dupes, evidently in the hope of driving a wedge between leaders and followers. It had deposed the alleged villains, and invited the rest to do likewise whereupon, they indicated, the sides could ‘come together … in a fraternal spirit …’, a gracious invitation that was rejected, to the shame as they saw it of Cyril’s Council.29 So John on the events of June 26. Cyril’s Council painted for the Emperor a very different picture that placed the blame squarely on John of Antioch, and John from this time on replaced Nestorius as the bête noire of the Cyrillians. Cyril had been surprised and disappointed when John had not joined him against Nestorius as expected (hoped?), but had stood aside and shot ‘arrows at the victors’.30 Still, when John and his cohort were arriving in Ephesus, Cyril’s Council sent a delegation to greet them and to explain that they should not try to meet with Nestorius, since he was deposed. Instead of being gratefully received, the delegates were kept waiting, and when at last they were admitted to John’s presence and informed him of what had happened, they were beaten by Irenaeus and soldiers accompanying John.31 is was why, when they returned to their own Council and reported what had happened, it met and indignantly declared John excommunicated. e implication was that the blame for the immediate breakdown of what was meant to be a cooperative meeting of the factions fell entirely upon John.32 Inevitably, the issue of the late arrival of the Antiochene contingent returned in another way in the service of the wider campaign to lay all the blame on John. He had, Cyril and Memnon claimed, arrived purposely ‘late and reluctantly at a time of his own choosing’ aer the orderly Council led by Cyril.33 His plan, they said, secretly formulated before his arrival, was to avoid meeting the members of Cyril’s Council, probably to ‘gratify Nestorius’ 29. Session of the Easterners of 26 June, ACO I, I, 5, 10, p. 121. 30. Homily of Cyril against Nestorius, ACO I, I, 2, p. 99. 31. e presence of soldiers with John most probably is explained as an attempt by Candidianus to see that the numerically much inferior Antiochene contingent was not overwhelmed by Cyril’s, the most likely reason, too, why Nestorius was surrounded by soldiers at Ephesus. 32. Letter of Memnon of Ephesus to the Clergy of Constantinople, ACO I, I, 3, pp. 46– 47. 33. Session of 16 July, ACO I, I, 3, p. 16.

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friendship’.34 We may detect here a tit-for-tat response to John’s Council’s charge that Cyril and Memnon had arrived with their own secret plan. By mid-July, the Cyrillian side had taken account of a very advantageous political fact: their numerical superiority – over 200 bishops, as compared with the 30-odd bishops accompanying John – meant that they made a much more convincing ecumenical council than did John’s pitiful remnant. John’s Council had invited defectors from Cyril’s to join with them to form the desired ecumenical council, but Cyril’s could claim to already be such a council, especially if one took into account the fact that, in representing Celestine, Cyril effectively represented Rome and Africa as well as Egypt and Asia. In that light, it was not such a stretch to claim that his Council represented ‘all the most holy bishops in the world.’35 at claim was strengthened by the July 10 session of Cyril’s Council, at which the late-arriving Roman legates confirmed, from an examination of the minutes of the June 22 session, that what had been decreed by Celestine was carried out in the proper manner – including the manner dictated by the Emperor – when Nestorius, having been summoned to answer Celestine’s ultimatum, was condemned and deposed.36 John was criticized on another procedural topic altogether: he had resorted to posters accusing Cyril of Apollinarianism, rather than making his case properly in council, sure proof that he knew his case was weak.37 All in all, this evidence purported to establish the correctness of Cyril’s Council, and that John was the one who should be summoned to appear – there were no soldiers to stop him, it was noted, unlike the delegates’ experience when they tried to meet with John – before Cyril’s Council. e proceedings of John’s Council should be annulled.38

W  R T   C  N From the earliest days of the controversy one’s loyalty to the Creed of Nicaea had been a supremely important issue. Loyalty to Nicaea and to Nicaea alone had been prescribed by eodosius. As we have noted, Cyril claimed that he was simply the defender of the literal faith of Nicaea, no more, no less, while Nestorius had introduced novelties. His Second 34. Letter of the Council to Celestine, ACO I, I, 3, 4, p. 6. 35. Reply of the Council to Theodosius II (1 July), ACO I, I, 3, 4, p. 32. 36. Session of 10 July, ACO I, I, 3, 21, p. 58; Session of 11 July, ACO I, I, 3, 27, p. 59. 37. Session of 17 July, ACO I, I, 3, p. 21. 38. Absence of soldiers: Session of July 17, ACO I, I, 3, p. 21; Summons: Session of 16 July, ACO I, I, 3, p. 21.

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Letter to Nestorius represented precisely what the Creed said, and therefore its acceptance by the June 22 session of his Council was a legitimate way of defending the Creed against novelty. Nestorius and his allies, on the other hand had a clever counter-claim: it was actually Cyril and his Council who introduced novelty when they added the Second Letter. A late-August session of Cyril’s Council seemed to take off in a new direction: it received a petition from a certain Charisius demanding confirmation of the Creed of Nicaea and condemnation of a new creed. is move was aimed at undermining the Antiochene argument purporting that Cyril was the innovator by showing that Nestorius was guilty of a far worse case of innovation: he and his colleagues had abandoned the Nicene Creed and had used an alternative and heretical creed in ceremonies of reconciliation with repentant heretics.39 As Charisius’ petition puts it, ‘they brought an exposition of impious doctrines, set out in the form of a creed, and got those wretches to sign it.’ ey had thereby ‘invalidated the exposition of faith of the holy fathers at Nicaea and made them sign another exposition of faith or rather of faithlessness.’40 is amounted to a ‘plot to overturn orthodoxy’. Needless to say, Charisius’ petition was granted. No one, the council decided, was ‘allowed to produce or write or compose another creed beside the one laid down … by the holy fathers assembled at Nicaea’, and anyone teaching what the alternative creed taught was to be deposed or excommunicated.41 e taint of involvement in creed-creating must have told powerfully against the Antiochenes among conservative churchmen. None of these arguments convinced the Emperor; the impression, obscured by the asynchronous and oen indirect communications involved, is that neither side gained a convincing advantage over the other with eodosius by means of any or all of these arguments. e significant developments took place on another front.

T  E S roughout, what eodosius desperately sought was the reactivation of the council he had envisaged and called, that is, of a single, universal council that resolved conflicts and reached agreement on the faith, but the patriarchs Cyril, seconded by Memnon, and John each insisted that 39. e cases cited were Quartodeciman and Novatian heretics. e alternative creed was reportedly composed by eodore of Mopsuestia, Nestorius’ teacher. 40. Session of 22 July, ACO I, I, 7, p. 96. 41. e prohibition against creating new creeds became known as Canon 7 of Ephesus, and played an important role in the later controversy.

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it was his that constituted that council, of course to the exclusion of its rival. His first decisive attempt to break the stalemate took the form of imperial decrees deposing, not one or the other of the patriarchs, but both of them along with Memnon, and placing them under house arrest. is was to treat antipathetic councils as both legitimate.42 e point was clear enough, though, if not the legality of what he did: it was the age-old strategy of eliminating the leaders on the not-unreasonable assumption that the main momentum came from that quarter, and that without them their followers would prove easier to deal with. is is what eodosius must have expected: with the three leaders interned, the remaining bishops of both councils were to find their way to a united council, as was originally intended, and to a peaceful solution under the direction of a more powerful and decisive imperial official than Candidianus, Count John.43 What eodosius expected did not come to pass, however. Count John with difficulty managed to assemble the bishops from both sides, but found them ‘utterly implacable and irreconcilable toward each other’, so much so that they refused even to use the same entrance into his house; he could not imagine, he said, ‘how they came to this point of acrimony and resentment.’44 ere was no way in which they were going to agree to unite in a reactivated council. Not only that. e strategy, far from resolving the crisis, made it even worse. Cyril’s Council announced that it was simply not going to carry out the deposition of Cyril and Memnon, just that of Nestorius, impudently suggesting that the Emperor must have made a huge mistake: he must have mixed up the names of Cyril and Memnon with those of John of Antioch and the Pelagian Caelestius, and as a result had condemned the wrong people! He must, too, have mistakenly assumed that the letter claiming to depose Cyril and Memnon had been ‘issued by the whole council’, whereas it had actually been issued by John’s illegitimate and partial Council alone. Besides, being based on false information, the conciliar letter from John’s Council demanding their deposition was invalid. Cyrillians could rightly act as though Cyril and Memnon had not actually been deposed, and could demand their restoration and release, something that was not officially granted until the very end of this episode.45 In the meantime, their claim that they were not legally deposed le them free to lead their factions more openly. What we may 42. e deposition: Sacra Sent through Count John (August, 431), ACO I, I, 3, pp. 31– 32; the opinion that both councils should be ratified: Letter of Count Irenaeus to the Easterners, ACO I, I, 5, p. 136. 43. Sacra Sent through Count John (August 431), ACO I, I, 3, pp. 32–33. 44. Report by Count John from Ephesus, ACO I, I, 7, pp. 67–68. 45. Reply of the Council to the Sacra, ACO I, I, 3, pp. 32–33.

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notice is the fact that eodosius validated the depositions enacted by both councils, despite the legal oddity of doing so; he was determined, this tells us, not to give in to choosing one side over the other, which would have provoked an even greater schism. Instead, he was bent on using all of his powers to induce the two councils to come together as one. Indeed, he insisted throughout that there really was only one council. at is also the strategic goal behind other imperial interventions mentioned in the communications. Take the case of Count Irenaeus. is lay champion of the Antiochene cause undertook to take John’s Council’s concerns to Constantinople, where he argued the Antiochene claims against ‘Egyptians’ before eodosius and certain ‘great officials’. He seemed, in his own opinion, to win the argument and enjoy the news of Cyril’ and Memnon’s deposition, but when Cyril’s physician and his Synkellos arrived everything changed. Officials who had been supportive became vague, saying first one thing, then another, and Irenaeus, rather than believing he was on his way to victory, began to feel threatened by plots.46 e point of what we take to be deliberate obfuscation by these officials would have been twofold: to maintain eodosius’ policy of refusing to confirm either side while pushing for unification, and to weaken resistance to moving towards unification with Cyril’s Council. at council for its part complained its members were under a kind of siege that isolated them in Ephesus and kept them in the dark. ey did know one thing: they were under ‘great pressure … being exerted on us by the officials’ to enter into ‘reconciliation’ with John’s Council.47 Another imperial official who got involved in Ephesus, Count John, found his efforts to facilitate reconciliation resisted by Cyril’s Council for reasons Cyril, usefully for us, clearly articulated: And even though [Count John] took countless steps to bring it about that John [of Antioch] and those with him would return to communion with [Cyril’s Council], right up to this day they [the holy council] have refused to heed this call, but they all persist in saying, ‘It is impossible for us to proceed to this, unless their uncanonical decree is rescinded, and they prostrate themselves before the council as having offended, and anathematize Nestorius and his doctrine in writing …’ ‘e whole stand of the council consists of these points.’48

Cyril’s clerical allies in Constantinople certainly agreed that to do anything other than to ‘confirm the decree of the majority’ would be to ‘allow the whole world together to be thrown into chaos by some pretence of 46. Letter of Count Irenaeus to the Easterners, ACO I, I, 5, pp. 135–36. 47. Letter of the Council to the Bishops in Constantinople, ACO I, I, 3, p. 44. 48. Letter of Cyril to the Clergy of Constantinople, ACO I, I, 3, p. 45.

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reconciliation …’49 Cyril’s Council’s legates to Constantinople, there by imperial command, were enjoined by their Council ‘in no way to accept communion with John of Antioch and his schismatic assembly’, and to promise nothing in the way of communion until Cyril and Memnon were restored.50 John’s Council informed its legates of continuing pressure being exerted on them by imperial officials: Two or three letters had come from our most pious emperors, charging us to unite the churches of God everywhere in the bond of peace and to remain content with the creed issued by the … fathers at Nicaea, while, evidently rejecting the causes of offence that have recently arisen …

In another document, John of Antioch tells us that eodosius ‘has already met with both us and them five times, and has ordered them either to reject Cyril’s chapters as contrary to the faith or to agree to argue in their defence …’51 ough they were perfectly willing to agree with Cyril’s Council, John’s legates said, and were ready and authorized to sign an agreed statement on their Council’s behalf, that meant less than it at first seems: they would do so only ‘when it becomes clear that in every way the heretical chapters inserted by Cyril of Alexandria into the creed … of Nicaea are being rejected with anathemas as alien to the catholic and apostolic church.’52 e Emperor’s attempt to get each side to present a document laying out its faith – a step towards working out the single statement of faith the Emperor desired – met, with the Antiochenes, a clever response: they were just following his instructions as to maintaining only the one creed, that of Nicaea, when they handed him as their statement of faith the unadorned Creed of Nicaea!53 What is clear is that imperial initiatives aimed at getting the warring parties to discuss the issues and come to an agreed statement of faith on which the church was united met with no success. e sides might say that they were ready to engage on that task, but there was always the qualification, ‘but we shall be happy to do so only aer our opponents abandon their heresy, and withdraw their orders of deposition and excommunication.’ Neither side being willing to give up on that qualification, there was stalemate. Stalemate led to frustration and despair, captured well in a letter written by eodoret from Chalcedon, where John’s Council was waiting for an invitation to come to Constantinople that never materialized. 49. 50. 51. 52. 53. p. 77.

Petition of the Clergy of Constantinople to Theodosius II, ACO I, I, 3, p. 49. Injunction to the Envoys of the Council, ACO I, I, 3, p. 34. Letter of John of Antioch and Others to Rufus of Thessalonica, ACO I, I, 3, pp. 39–42. Injunction to the Envoys of the Easterners, ACO I, I, 3, p. 37. Second Letter of the Easterners at Ephesus to those at Constantinople, ACO I, I, 7,

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He and his fellows had tried gentleness, he wrote, they had tried harshness, but that got them nowhere. ey stood firmly by their condemnation of the chapters, but they had been unable to get them universally condemned, the Emperor and his officials vacillating between the sides (the obfuscation mentioned earlier), never deciding for either; they were, as one correspondent put it, pliable. If anything, Cyril’s side had gained an advantage by bribing court officials extremely generously, but they too could have said that they had made no real progress, given what happened next, eodosius’ abrupt dissolution of the councils – he still treated the two as one council, but issued separate sacra of dissolution – without making a decision on the matters raised.54 From a modern point of view the unwavering resistance each side felt to negotiating with the other unless the other side totally abandoned its position may continue to be difficult to understand. Why could they not at least discuss their differences? Why would they not even produce a defence of their beliefs in writing? e reasons why they could not take that apparently obvious step have to do, at least in part, with legalities that seem to have been respected by all. Each side had held a trial over which its leader (John or Cyril) acted as prosecutor and president, its membership acted as judges, and the leader of the other side was the defendant. e case had been duly heard, judgement reached, and the defendant in either case declared deposed and excommunicated. All that remained for the legal procedure to be complete was imperial enactment, but so long as it was withheld, the court was in a sense still in process. e roles the principals assumed following the court model had implications, the chief of which for our purposes was a strict delineation of the prosecutor’s and the accused’s functions: the prosecutor’s job was to present the case against the accused, not to defend himself; the defendant’s job was to speak in his own defence, not to accuse anyone. is meant that, to use one side as an example, if in its view Cyril properly considered himself the prosecutor, and John of Antioch the defendant, that meant that Cyril as prosecutor could make the case against John, but John could not make accusations against him, only defend himself. Nor could Cyril as prosecutor make a statement in his own defence; a statement of defence was a job for the defendant. A similar situation, but in reverse, obtained for John’s party: Cyril to them was the defendant, entitled to defend himself, but not to attack John. John as prosecutor, though, could make the case against Cyril.55 e situations were similar, not identical. e Cyrillians 54. Letter of Theodoret to Alexander of Hierapolis, ACO I, I, 7, pp. 79–80; bribes: A List of Gifts from Cyril to People at Court, ACO I, 4, pp. 224–25. 55. e evidence, Irenaeus wrote, showed that ‘e Egyptian had neither convened the council properly nor had a right to sit in judgement, being himself one of those to be

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had arrived at Ephesus with a unshakeable conviction that Cyril was the prosecutor, which role precluded presenting a statement in his own defence. But presenting a statement in his own defence was exactly what the Emperor or the Antiochenes wanted him to do when they asked him to go to Constantinople and present a statement of his faith for argument and discussion. He was caught in a legal bind: he would have to accept the role of defendant – which was completely unacceptable – if he was to enter into the negotiations the Emperor proposed. For Cyril’s side claiming this legal bind as the cause of their refusal to engage with attacks by producing a statement of faith was perhaps an attractive way to avoid a battle for which the Antiochenes were much better prepared – they had arrived in Ephesus with a fully prepared case against Cyril on grounds of Apollinarianism. For Antiochenes there was less reason to avoid a confrontation on legal or other grounds, and they did on occasion ask for a confrontation, but that would have required Cyrillian agreement that was not forthcoming. e dialogue a modern might have proposed with success, and that eodosius and his officials kept on proposing without success, was impossible. ere was only one resolution possible to the legal stalemate so long as they remained in courtroom mode: each side would have to abandon its position and the depositions and excommunications it had decreed. at being unacceptable, deadlock remained. e Antiochenes at the last minute attempted to move on from the courtroom mode with its limitations: they lodged two petitions, both entreating the Emperor to order the rejection of the chapters, or make anyone who wished to debate them do so in the Emperor’s presence with the Emperor as judge.56 It would have been clear to eodosius that either of these actions would be totally unacceptable to Cyril and his sympathizers, indeed would cause an uproar, and the petitions seem never to have been officially received. It is worth noting that a similar deadlock obtained in the matter of holding church services. e canons denied to those under condemnation permission to hold services, particularly the eucharist, in churches.57 Each side was under condemnation from its rival’s point of view, but perfectly entitled to hold services from its own point of view. When eodosius asked the Antiochenes, for example, what they would have him do about judged.’ Letter of Count Irenaeus to the Easterners, ACO I, I, 5, p. 36. Count John was said by Cyril to have asked for a statement of faith from Cyril’s Council so that he might boast that he had ‘joined them together … [but] the holy council again insisted unanimously, “We refuse to insult ourselves, for we were not summoned as heretics …”’ Letter of Cyril to the Clergy of Constantinople, ACO I, I, 3, p. 45. 56. First Petition of the Eastern Delegates, ACO I, I, 7, pp. 72–73; Second Petition of the Eastern Delegates, ACO I, I, 7, pp. 74–75. 57. So-called Canon 7 of Ephesus.

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their complaint that deposed persons on the Cyrillian side were holding services – according to a petition of John’s Council Cyrillian bishops had been summoned to Constantinople in order to ‘perform priestly acts’ – they said eodosius should follow the example of an official in Ephesus who had said that, if they were not going to make peace, he would not allow just one side to hold services until they were reconciled.58 e deadlock we have observed was never resolved by the Council of Ephesus or, more realistically, the Councils of Ephesus. eodosius accordingly issued two sacra dissolving the Council. In the first of these he lamented his inability to achieve what was every emperor’s goal for the empire, ‘the true faith which held of old … uncontested and unshakeable, with yourselves united in friendship …’ He had tried everything to settle the dispute, had sent his emissaries, all to no avail. ‘But because the dispute that had been caused still continues, aware that your religiousness was suffering distress from the pressure of the council, we have given permission for you all to return home from Ephesus and occupy again your own churches.’ Only Cyril’ and Memnon’s depositions were to remain in force.59 A final sacrum issued specifically to Cyril’s Council some time later sent Cyril and Memnon home as well. eodosius’ tone was not friendly. He could not blame himself, he said, for the problem had lain with the bishops, who had refused even ‘to come to a discussion of the points under dispute’, let alone resolve their disputes. He made no secret of his disappointment, and his closing sentence made it clear that he blamed Cyril specifically for refusing to engage the Antiochenes in the discussions he had been willing to sponsor, and not the Antiochenes: ‘For we declare to your religiousness that, while we live, we cannot condemn the Easterners; for they have been convicted of nothing in our presence, since no one agreed to debate with them.’60 He would be glad to hear someone’s proposal for a non-contentious way to achieve peace, but failing to hear such – and it is clear he expected no better – ‘immediately take thought for your departure, for it is not us who are guilty, but God knows the guilty.’61 With those words eodosius washed his hands of the first of the great initiatives – the holding of an ecumenical council – he took to resolve the conflict that had so unprofitably occupied the energies of church and 58. Priestly acts: Second Petition of the Eastern Delegates, ACO I, I, 7, pp. 74–75. 59. First Sacra Dissolving the Council, ACO I, IV, pp. 68–69. 60. e whole thrust of Cyril’s Council had been to condemn Nestorius, and he had in deed been duly condemned. He was condemned as an individual, however; no case had been made proving anything against his Antiochene allies. 61. Final Sacra Dissolving the Council, ACO I, I, 7, p. 142.

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state. He could point the finger of blame darkly at those he held responsible for his failure, unmistakably Cyril and his contingent of bishops, and speak well of the Antiochenes. What he could not do was wash his hands of the conflict itself, which had if anything grown deeper and more intense while the experiment of a conciliar solution was playing itself out. Nor could he eliminate the imbalance between the prestigious but stolid Cyril, and the agile but far less numerous Antiochenes. If he was to find a strategy that could succeed where he had failed before, it would have to cope with these realities.

C 8

THE ‘UNION’ OF 433 eodosius could try to wash his hands of the controversy. He could send the principals home under rebuke. What he could not do was ignore the fact that the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch had anathematized and deposed each other, with the whole church lining up behind one or the other of them. at ri remained unresolved; neither side had withdrawn its anathemas and orders of deposition. Given the fact that he blamed Cyril for the failure of Ephesus I, and cleared the Antiochenes of any responsibility, eodosius seems to have turned to the latter when he did again engage with the problem. Together they chose to attempt something a good deal more modest than a universal reconciliation by means of an ecumenical council. It would be enough, for a start, just to get Cyril to agree with John on a statement.1 When dealing with just two men, moreover, eodosius could and did exert enormous pressure, as the letters of the period bear witness.2 Getting the patriarchs to agree would mean accommodating the central demands of both sides which, not surprisingly, had not changed through the bitter and ineffectual wrangling of Ephesus I. Antiochenes were still concerned to eliminate the threat of Cyril’s alleged Apollinarianism, to most of them what was centrally at stake rather than the vindication of Nestorius. Cyril, though, remained focused on theotokos and Nestorius.3 e latter had indeed been condemned by Cyril’s Council, but certainly not by John’s; moreover, his deposition was never brought into effect in the absence of imperial ratification. Moreover, he had muddied the waters by retiring, and by living under some sort of imperial protection, a situation that le the question of his orthodoxy or heterodoxy unresolved. is was not likely to satisfy Cyril. Naturally, ecclesiastical politics in the emerging situation were 1. is limitation of the Union, and of the negotiations that led to it, is not always recognized. It was not a universal settlement, and therefore all the more fragile. 2. E.g. John of Antioch, Letter to the Bishop of Rome, Cyril, and Maximian, ACO I, I, 4, p. 33. 3. ‘Let [the members of the synod of Antioch] agree to the deposing of Nestorius by anathematizing his blasphemies and polluted teachings, and nothing else is le to be done to remove contention from our midst …’ Cyril had written, setting out his terms for agreement with admirable economy: Cyril, Letter to Acacius of Beroea 6, ACO I, I, 7, pp. 149–50.

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bound to be practiced against the background of imperial pressure for a ‘bond of unity’, as Cyril would later style it, and of ecclesiastical participants still bent on winning what advantage they could over an all-toowell-known foe, not, pace a good many commentators, on recognizing that foe’s merits.4 Still, if the court was to guide the fractious church into a real peace agreement, that agreement would have to allow both sides to feel they had won a victory. eodosius, despite his animosity towards Cyril, seems to have realized this. It was the favoured Antiochenes who were charged with preparing a dra of the proposed Union, and that fact gave them a certain advantage. On the other hand, they were surely realistic enough and sophisticated enough, in the interests of achieving at least a ceasefire, to come up with a document that incorporated much from their opponents’ side and played down what was distinctly their own. It was a job for which they were uniquely prepared: they had a strategy for presenting themselves in a favourable way, and they had in hand just the document to do the job, the document they had proposed for discussion between their representatives and Cyril’s towards the close of the Ephesine councils, surely a document so framed that it could reasonably have been hoped that Cyril’s legates would accept it. Cyril had found reasons to decline the discussion at Ephesus, but without seeing the document. In all likelihood it became the Union document, and that, certainly, went out of its way to satisfy both it authors and their opponents.

T C  N: A P  R Downplaying for strategic reasons their own gains in a document that had to be agreed with their enemies was certainly a feature of the Union the Antiochenes proposed. e strategy seems to have gone further than that. As we are about to argue, sometimes they adopted the subterfuge of misrepresenting what they stood for so that it appeared, but only appeared, to be what their enemies approved of. is came pretty close to being a full-fledged claiming of the mantle of Cyril or, to use a different term for much the same strategy, taking protective colouration. So it was early on 4. Cyril, Letter to Acacius of Beroea, ACO I, I, 7, pp. 147–50: e charming notion of the sides sitting down earnestly to study, recognizing the worth of the adversary’s ideas, and thereby realizing that the sides actually believed substantially the same thing, is just that, a charming notion. e documents reveal rather an ongoing adversarial relationship that might, if advantageous, occasionally disguise itself as cordiality. Ephesus had settled nothing either way, which meant that neither side was satisfied.

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with theotokos. As an issue, the use of theotokos was defused by Antiochenes’ agreement to use the term, but though they used it as if to do so made them one with Cyril, a reading of the fine print in Nestorius’ letter to John of Antioch, discussed above, shows that they did not quite use it in the way Cyril used it; reaching an agreement, as is oen the case, required ignoring the fine print. It was easy for Antiochenes to wear the mantle of Cyril on that score. More problematic was, from Cyril’s point of view, uncertainty about the status of Nestorius: condemned by Cyril’s Council, not condemned by John’s Council, and if condemned not fully condemned since the decree of Cyril’s Council had never been ratified, who knew what to say about his status? For Antiochenes, condemning him, a man they believed to be no heretic but rather, if the truth were known, a defender of orthodoxy, did not come so easily, yet it was sine qua non for Cyril; he would not negotiate peace until John had fully and plainly condemned Nestorius. John did so, but his agreement to do so is troubling to us, at it was to the contemporaries who stood by Nestorius. How could John so abandon a friend and colleague, unless it was out of shabby self-interest, that is, to retain his throne? History may have done John a grave injustice. ere may be another explanation for his behaviour. Aer all, he had stood by Nestorius through years of controversy despite the latter’s penchant for shooting himself in the foot, attracting unwelcome attention, and endangering his friends. He had presided over a council defending Nestorius in the fight with Cyril and his council. He had endured on Nestorius’ behalf anathemas, threats and house arrest. It seems improbable that such a loyal friend and ally would condemn so easily the friend he had fought long and hard for. It now appears that convincing but previously overlooked evidence shows that John condemned Nestorius for very different, quite startling reasons that show John’s actions in an entirely new light. In condemning Nestorius, this evidence reveals, he was not playing the traitor, but deploying on behalf of the Antiochene fellowship a new and remarkable strategy for the group’s survival. It was a strategy proposed by the last person we would expect to have proposed it, Nestorius himself. It is enunciated in a neglected passage of his memoir, the so-called Bazaar of Heracleides, in which Nestorius describes what he encourages members of his cadre to do: My own aim and my zeal is that God may be blessed and glorified even on earth as in heaven. But may Nestorius be anathematized, but may they say what I pray them to say concerning God. For I am of those who [are] with God and not of those who [are] against God, who scorn God himself in the schema of piety and make void [the fact] that he is God. For he wars for the

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things [for] which I war, and they that war with me war against him, and for this reason on his account I am pledged to endure and to suffer everything, so that by my own anathema would that every man might be [ready] enough to be reconciled unto God, because there is naught greater or more precious unto me than this.5

Despite the murky syntax, the strategy enunciated here is clear enough, and its implications are radical: ‘I don’t want people to do battle on my behalf!’, Nestorius is saying. ‘Instead, I want them to join in condemning me! ey must condemn me, in fact, and do so publically and unequivocally! at will free them from my taint, and they may then be le to go on doing theology as we Antiochenes have characteristically done it, preserving God’s divinity from the ignorant (Cyril and his allies) who would compromise it by saying the divine Word literally became flesh, and literally suffered and died. Our cause is all that really matters to me. My personal fate is of no importance.’ If, as we surmise, this very strategy was proposed to John of Antioch by Nestorius himself sometime in late 432, it presents his otherwise seemingly cynical willingness to condemn Nestorius in a positive light: John was not betraying Nestorius by condemning him, but doing exactly what Nestorius wanted him to do! Nestorius was willing – we may speculate that it was a willingness partly born of the awareness that he, by his own indiscretions and pigheadedness, had brought his friends and colleagues to this pass – to be the scapegoat by condemning whom the Antiochenes would be freed of suspicion and allowed to carry on the work he passionately believed in. John was, reluctantly we may suppose, letting Nestorius be the scapegoat, not just in his personal interest, but in the interest of the fellowship they both wished to have survive the perilous times in which they found themselves. It might be objected that we do not, as we would wish, have Nestorius in this text speaking directly to the situation in which John and the Antiochenes found themselves in 432. e text rather concerns Nestorius’ view of Flavian of Constantinople, a person who will eventually be of great interest to us in his own right, and on whose behaviour, as it turns out, these comments from Nestorius will cast important light.6 For the present, we note for purposes of identification that Flavian was the archbishop of Constantinople who was to preside over the trial of Eutyches in 448, 5. Nestorius, Second Apology, tr. Driver and Hodgson, p. 370. I am grateful to Istvan Perczel for pointing this important passage out to me. 6. e text cited constitutes Nestorius’ response to a question: ‘But some will say: “What participation hast thou with Flavian and with what has been done against him, and on his account? For thee everyone has anathematized and denounced …”’, Second Apology, tr. Driver and Hodgson, p. 369.

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a major turning-point in our story. Nestorius has been asked to explain why he is so positive about a man, Flavian, who was on record as having condemned him. Nestorius’ response is that of course he approves of Flavian because, in his view, Flavian pursues precisely the strategy he, Nestorius, characteristically encourages: Flavian’s cover story was that he was orthodox in the way of Cyril and sympathizers, which he ‘proved’ by condemning Nestorius, but he used that cover to champion covertly what Nestorius stood for.7 Are we justified in supposing that Nestorius proposed the same strategy more than fieen years earlier? ere are reasons to suppose he did. While the text obviously comes from a later time, Nestorius does seem to be enunciating, not an approach new to him, but a long- and passionately-held understanding of the role he has chosen. He is assuring his questioner that he has, not just at that moment, and not just in the case of Flavian, but habitually accepted the scapegoat role, and by urging his friends to anathematize him, by releasing them from the demands of loyalty and friendship, has cleared them of the suspicion that they share what their enemies see as his heresy, thus allowing them to return to the peaceful pursuit of the truth about God as he and they understand it. We should also remember that he and other members of the Antiochene fellowship, even those who had officially condemned him, were in constant private communication and consultation with one another right up to the time of his death despite his condemnation, something that would seem highly improbable had they actually betrayed him, and had he believed they had done so. (Nestorius could and did, at the same time, protest to the wider church that he had been unjustly condemned, but that does not challenge our interpretation). ere is a third consideration: the way in which the ‘Union’ document was written – something we shall be looking at shortly – has odd features that may make sense if the adoption of something like Nestorius’ strategy was in play. On all these grounds we conclude that it is entirely likely that Nestorius, from 432 on, both proposed, and played his part in, the startling strategy we have described. e significant thing is that John of Antioch did agree to condemn Nestorius, a decision that effectively identified him with Cyril – clothed him to some extent in Cyril’s mantle – and so opened the way to agreement on the ‘Union’ signed in 433, a document that did cunningly provide room for his associates’ continuation of their enterprise by means of this strategy. John wrote to Cyril et al. in 432 interpreting his own capitulation to Nestorius’ condemnation in a way that tells us how convinced he 7. Flavian’s case will concern us in chapter 12.

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was that the strategy proposed by Nestorius was the best way forward: ‘[W]e did not agree with [Cyril’s council] at that time because of the indictment and deposition carried out against Nestorius.’ Now, however, [i]n order that [the churches] may be united … and because the most Godrevering and Christ-loving emperor decrees that this be brought about … it has pleased us, for the removal of all strife … to agree to the vote of the holy council carried out against Nestorius … because the churches with us have always kept the true and blameless faith, just as your holiness [does] …8

It is essential to note, here, how Nestorius’ strategy is taken up to allow John to dissociate himself and other Antiochenes from heretical views that could then be seen, the implication is, as peculiar to Nestorius. ough John and his colleagues had indeed fallen out with Cyril, John says, their falling out was only temporary, and only over how Nestorius was deposed, not over his doctrine, which they rejected. at being granted, John can go on to illustrate the obvious further manoeuvre the strategy implied, one not fully enunciated by Nestorius in the passage from the Bazaar of Heracleides, but perhaps spelled out in private strategy sessions: Antiochenes can present themselves convincingly, not just in negative terms as not being heretics in the mould of Nestorius, proven by their open condemnation of him, but in positive terms as ‘having kept the true and blameless faith, just as [Cyril did]’. ey can find ways, that is, to pass themselves off as adherents of the ‘faith of the fathers’ defended by Cyril. Cyril himself, in a letter to Maximian (who had been made patriarch of Constantinople in Nestorius’ place), seemed to be satisfied by the condemnation of Nestorius extracted from John, and by the emperor’s long-delayed sentence of exile against him: For the man who was … opening his unrestrained mouth for blasphemies against Christ has withdrawn from the holy and divine court and your reverence has grown up in his place and shot up as a plant of peace … And this is the brilliant function of a revered emperor …9

Had he known that what John had really done was to use Nestorius’ condemnation and exile as protective colouration for the clandestine survival of what Nestorius stood for, Cyril would have been less impressed. He did not known what John had really done, or that the strategy of protective colouration was in play, and that meant relations between him and John on the issue of Nestorius were easily mended. Coming to agreement on what the Antiochenes demanded for reconciliation with Cyril was going to be more difficult. 8. John of Antioch, Letter to the Bishop of Rome, Cyril, and Maximian, ACO I, I, 4, p. 33. 9. Cyril, Letter to Maximian 4, ACO I, I, 3, p. 72, tr. FC 76, p. 124.

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T U e court’s plan at first was for face-to-face negotiations between John and Cyril in the course of which they would produce the required joint statement, but those negotiations never took place.10 It seems probable that Cyril was continuing to resist meeting his adversaries because he feared their superior debating skills. Perhaps the emperor and his advisers came to realize, too, how explosive such a meeting of recent antagonists was likely to be. In the end, Paul of Emesa, a man trusted by all parties, undertook shuttle diplomacy between Cyril and John instead. It was Paul who presented to Cyril a petition from John asking him to subscribe to the appended statement, prepared in Antioch. is ‘Union’ statement Cyril approved with minimal alterations, establishing a kind of peace between himself and John. Here is the statement in full: On the matter of how we think and speak concerning the Virgin the eotokos and the manner in which the only-begotten Son of God became man, we must state briefly (not by way of addition but in the form of giving an assurance) what we have held from the first, having received it both from the divine scriptures and from the tradition of the holy fathers, making no addition at all to the creed issued by the holy fathers at Nicaea. For, as we have just said, it is sufficient both for a complete knowledge of orthodoxy and for the exclusion of all heretical error. We shall state it, not hazarding impossibilities but in the acknowledgement of our own frailty, to exclude those who wish to attack us for looking into things beyond the power of man. We therefore acknowledge our Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, perfect God and perfect man made up of a rational soul and body, begotten from the Father before the ages in respect of the Godhead and the same on the last day for us and for our salvation from the Virgin Mary in respect of his manhood, the same consubstantial with the Father in respect of the Godhead and consubstantial with us in respect of the manhood. For there has occurred a union of two natures, and therefore we acknowledge one Christ, one Son, one Lord. By virtue of this understanding of the union which involves no merging, we acknowledge the holy Virgin to be eotokos, because God the Word was enfleshed and became man and from the very conception united to himself the temple taken from her. As regards the sayings concerning the Lord in the gospels and the apostolic writings we know that theologians treat some as common, as relating to one person, and distinguish others, as relating to two natures, attributing the ones worthy of God to the Godhead of Christ and the lowly ones to his manhood.11

Just as we would expect, the document makes it abundantly clear that John wanted to present himself as in harmony with Cyril as far as was possible. Almost the entire document affirms in slogan-like form the doctrinal 10. John of Antioch, Petition to Cyril, ACO I, I, 4, pp. 6–7. 11. Cyril, Letter to John of Antioch, ACO II, I, 1, pp. 108–109, tr. ACC I, pp. 179–80.

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themes beloved by Cyril: recognition of the title theotokos for Mary as fulfilling the Nicene Creed’s meaning à la Cyril; theotokos as the teaching handed down by Scripture and by the tradition of the fathers à la Cyril; the Creed of Nicaea as all-sufficient, in accord with Cyril’s council’s ruling against further creeds (but insisting – a first point of contention – that it was the Creed of Nicaea alone, not as explained by Cyril’s Second Letter to Nestorius); the ineffability of God’s ways in the incarnation, a constant theme of Cyril’s; ‘one Christ, one Son, one Lord’, in capsule form Cyril’s position as contrasted with, as he supposed, the two Christs/ sons/lords of Diodore of Tarsus, the forefather of Antiochene thinking; a real union, not the mere conjunction posited by Nestorius and detested by Cyril. John and his advisers had pulled out all the stops to take on Cyrillian colouration. Cyril could not help recognizing, in what was represented to him in almost the entire statement as what John believed, pretty much what he himself believed. at was, of course, the result John’s strategy was intended to achieve.12 With Nestorius already condemned, the articulation of a Cyrillian-sounding faith by cramming the statement full of Cyrillian slogans was about as far as John was willing to go in the attempt to agree, or seem to agree, with Cyril. ere remains the question, what would Cyril have to agree to if John was to be satisfied? We know the answer from what we observed in our study of the documents of Ephesus I: John would have to be satisfied that whatever statement he and Cyril agreed on decisively excluded Apollinarianism. at takes us to the most contentious section of the Union, its closing sentence. ere are elements of the Union that were not contentious as far as Cyril was concerned, scholarly opinion notwithstanding. e assertion that Christ was consubstantial with God and with us human beings was going to be taken up as a weapon at the trial of Eutyches, but no implications of the sort were even hinted at here. Even saying that a union was made of Christ’s two natures was not – the point must be emphasized yet again because the contrary has so oen been asserted – out of line with what Cyril habitually said: he was comfortable with dyophysite language; natures language was not yet an issue. It should be noted, too, that the document did not, contrary to what was soon asserted by some, and has been repeated as fact far too oen since, bind Cyril to saying that Christ was in two natures or always had two natures, only to saying there was 12. It is a good question whether John et al. subscribed to these beliefs with a good conscience, or tongue-in-cheek. at John and the other leading Antiochenes had joined in trying to convince Nestorius he could say theotokos during the winter of 431–32 suggests Antiochenes could accept, perhaps not with enthusiasm but yet with a clear conscience, Cyrillian formulations, so long as they could be construed in acceptable ways.

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a union of two natures.13 No, the only place where John insisted on something genuinely at issue was in the statement’s final sentence. What the last sentence of the Union would have Cyril confess is precisely the key activity of Antiochene scholarship, deciding for each gospel text which nature it relates to, the divine, or the human. It is the activity condemned in Cyril’s fourth anathema. It is also the activity that was absolutely incompatible with Apollinarianism’s central doctrine of ‘one nature’, the doctrine most detested by Antiochenes. at made Cyril’s agreement to it, if that could be obtained, the ideal concession for John to demand. If Cyril agreed, the church would be saved from Apollinarianism. As we might expect, John did his tactful best to soen his demand. ere was no mention of Apollinarianism per se. ere was no demand that Cyril ‘approve’, just ‘acknowledge’ that theologians performed this activity, granting Antiochene theologians the right to do something he himself might not do. It is just possible that John, or whoever authored the document, worded it in such a way as to make it possible for Cyril to interpret this activity in his own way, as he himself would do when defending his agreement with John.14 at is to say, it is possible the wording was meant to allow Cyril to take the designating of which nature each text referred to as meaning what he meant, that is, that the one incarnate Word acted sometimes in a divine way, sometimes in a human way – drawing a distinction between two ways of being of one entity, rather than between two entities.15 It is more likely, however, that Cyril offered this interpretation of what he had agreed to aerwards by way of apologetic. e fact is that, despite soening of the demand’s wording, Cyril’s agreement to the 13. It is oen wrongly assumed that the statement specifically asserted that Christ was ‘in two natures’, in contradistinction to Cyril’s soon-to-be-enunciated formula ‘out of two natures’, and in contradiction to his likewise soon-to-be-enunciated formula ‘one incarnate nature of God the Word’. In fact, the statement simply affirmed some sort of belief in a union involving two natures. 14. E.g. Cyril, Letter to Acacius of Melitene, ACO I, I, 4, tr. FC 76, p. 166: ‘But neither did I do away with the difference of the sayings, but I know that the Lord speaks in a manner proper to his divinity, and humanly at the same time, since he is both God and man. erefore, because [John] desires to signify this, he wrote that he taught to confess the difference of the natures.’ 15. In his subsequent attempt to maintain the correctness of his agreement with John et al. aer continuing Nestorians pointed out what he had seemingly let himself in for, Cyril would argue that the Antiochenes’ approach was not so much wrong as inferior because it took two separate statements, one as to the oneness of Christ, the other as to the duality of natures, to enunciate a completely orthodox stand, whereas his own approach captured the whole orthodox sense in a single statement of the form ‘the Lord speaks in a manner proper to his divinity, and humanly at the same time, since he is in himself both God and man.’ e danger that lay in the Antiochenes’ way of putting it was that unbalanced attention to either statement immediately destroyed their orthodoxy.

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famous sentence represented a major standing down in favour of the Antiochenes led by John; Cyril cannot have been unaware of that fact. Why then did he subscribe to the Union? ere is really only one compelling answer: he was forced into it to escape unrelenting imperial harassment. e emperor’s goal of church unity appeared to have been achieved at least between the two patriarchs. Cyril wrote to Acacius of Melitene, putting a good face on what had happened, saying that ‘there was no doubt at all that peace between the holy churches was going to weaken the defenders of Nestorius’ blasphemies.’16 Note, however, that Cyril claims, not that peace between the churches had been achieved, just that peace was on the point of weakening his opponents. None of the three parties now in real or seeming harmony – Cyril, the court, and John of Antioch – seems to have expected what came in place of peace. ey had forgotten the fourth party to the Nestorian Controversy, the ‘Nestorians’, those loyalists who refused to pretend they anathematized Nestorius. ese hardliners were about to compromise the fragile peace that had been so dearly and so recently bought. ey were also about to turn the spotlight again onto Cyril’s third letter, and in particular onto its fourth anathema, in the process turning Christ’s natures – heretofore a complete non-issue – at last into the defining issue of the ongoing christological controversy. Because of them, everything was going to change.

16. Cyril, Letter to Acacius of Melitene 5, Wickham, p. 41.

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WAR IN A TIME OF PEACE 43348 Any peace likely to be achieved under the ‘Union’ could never be more than a mask for the deep differences that simmered beneath the surface, growing as they did out of a history of hostility and mistrust, and more than that, a genuine difference in the combatants’ ways of understanding their faith. e struggle was by no means over; it had simply been transformed. e challenge now for either John or Cyril was to win control of the Union document, construe it in a sense favourable to his own side, and use it against alternative positions, all the while maintaining the fiction of brotherly concord required by the emperor. Because the Union was an agreement strictly between two patriarchs, those not belonging to the circle of either of the signatories, and therefore not bound by the Union, could engage in a more direct, rough-and-tumble struggle on behalf of their parties’ views. e patriarchs might try to bring them into line, but that was an uphill battle. Antiochenes who refused to participate in the subterfuge of condemning Nestorius, for instance, and so deserve the name Cyril gave them, ‘the Nestorians’, were free to attack both John and Cyril and to construe the Union in their own way.1 On the Cyrillian side there were those, free of the restraints Cyril felt, who would insist on new and exclusively Cyrillian terms Cyril himself may have used, but did not insist upon. Both sides spent considerable time and energy on a surrogate battle over Diodore of Tarsus, father of the Antiochene school, and eodore of Mopsuestia, its recently-deceased great teacher: were they fathers in an orthodox tradition, or the founders of a heresy? e signing of the ‘Union’ marked, therefore, not so much the beginning of peace as the beginning of a fieen-year-long, ongoing clandestine war prosecuted in a time of official peace. e Antiochenes around John of Antioch saw the value, and the political necessity, of sustaining the ‘Union’, but they wanted, of course, to construe Cyril’s subscription to it, in accordance with their long-term agenda, as leaving room for their own enterprise. at was not so easy to achieve. 1. e word ‘Nestorian’ in our usage is taken to mean simply ‘someone who takes a stand with and for Nestorius’. It implies no assumptions about the orthodoxy or heterodoxy of such a person.

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John wrote over-optimistically to his colleagues immediately aer the signing of the Union, as Cyril complains: ‘I hear that the most pious and religious bishop John has written to certain friends to the effect that I have told people clearly and in strong language to affirm the difference between the natures and divide the terms in conformity with the natures.’2 In that same letter to Acacius of Melitene (to which we shall turn in more detail shortly) Cyril spelled out his disagreement with John’s view. He had not, he said, agreed clearly and completely with John on natures and gospel sayings; he had, rather, ‘accepted’ John’s statement in defence of his substantive orthodoxy, while maintaining strong reservations about how he expressed it.3 ere was work to be done before there could be complete agreement, if ever. ings were off to a bumpy start, but a start nonetheless. Fieen years of skirmishing that saw neither side achieve a decisive victory lay ahead, and beyond them four years which saw dramatic, seemingly-decisive victories first for one side, then for the other, follow in rapid succession. Out-and-out schism rather than genuine victory for either side was to be the final outcome.

S   C  N One of the fights that went on between Cyril and John under the new cover of peace was the fight over condemning Nestorius. Cyril had insisted that, before there could be any agreement between them, John would have to agree with him in anathematizing Nestorius. John, on our view, had adopted Nestorius’ proposed strategy of pretending to join in the latter’s condemnation, and so had given the appearance of agreeing with Cyril. is was compliance on his own behalf, but it said nothing about the compliance of other bishops in the patriarchate. An intriguing feature of the situation was the fact that neither Nestorius nor any specific doctrine of his was actually mentioned in the Union itself, and that meant that subscribing to the Union as the emperor insisted, and condemning Nestorius, were not at all the same thing. Cyril might assume the contrary, that the Union and the condemnation of Nestorius were indissolubly connected, and for him the ideal outcome of his Union with John would be the complete acquiescence of all the bishops of both patriarchates in both, but a significant number of Antiochene bishops, as the lengthy 2. Cyril, Letter to Acacius of Melitene 20, Wickham, pp. 56–57. John’s letter ‘scandalized’ Cyril’s people. It must have been sent very soon aer the signing of the ‘Union’ because Cyril mentions it in this, his first letter on the post-Union events. 3. Cyril, Letter to Acacius of Melitene 20, Wickham, pp. 58–59.

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correspondence between Cyril and John shows, did not always, or oen, see it that way. Many seem to have co-operated, when they co-operated, so unconvincingly that Cyril recognized this as a ruse: in his correspondence with John and others he frequently refers to people who feign condemnation of Nestorius, including eventually eodoret, and demands that they be convinced, or forced, to join in a proper condemnation.4 ese manifestations of resistance to the condemnation of Nestorius that was so essential to his satisfaction with the Union disquieted Cyril greatly, as the tone of these letters makes perfectly clear. Cyril could say, in his letter to Acacius of Melitene mentioned above, ‘[T]here was no doubt at all that peace between the holy churches was going to weaken the defenders of Nestorius’ blasphemies’, but he must have realized how fragile, even illusory, his victory was.5 Perhaps the resistance also convinced him that some more stringent standard than formal condemnation of Nestorius and formal acceptance of the Union was needed to establish a person’s orthodoxy. (Such a standard was, at least for his party, about to emerge out of his struggle with a third form of Antiochene resistance, the resistance of out-and-out Nestorian loyalists, as we shall shortly see). Still, for all his frustration, and for all his badgering of John, Cyril clung to the conviction, or at least the claim, that he and John had reached substantive agreement, and the same seems to have been true of John.6 Cyril in the letters always enlisted John’s support in such a way as to give the impression that he and John were in that kind of agreement, never for a moment encouraging the suspicion that John agreed with nonconforming bishops in the patriarchate, rather than with him. Cyril would not allow that his ‘victory’ in the Union was delusional, and neither could John admit that his victory was delusional. Moreover, neither can have wished to face a return to the years of imperial wrath and house arrest that reverting to schism would inevitably occasion. If they were not examples of brotherly love, Cyril and John were at least brothers-in-arms against the possible failure of the Union because of some clerics’ stubborn loyalty to Nestorius. In rare moments, Cyril could even feel sympathy for John and make allowances for inadequacies, given the circumstances: ‘[L]et us accept communion with … John,’ he wrote, ‘yielding to him also for 4. See for example Cyril, Letter to Aristolaus, ACO I, 4, p. 230; Letters to John of Antioch, ACO I, 4, pp. 228–29, and 231. 5. Cyril, Letter to Acacius of Melitene 5, Wickham, p. 41. 6. Cyril argued that John truly agreed with him, but had to be convinced to anathematize Nestorius’ teachings and declare him deposed: Cyril, Letter to Eusebius, ACO I, I, 7. Cyril’s reading of the situation was seconded by Pope Sixtus, for whom John of Antioch had never actually been a Nestorian; he had just suspended judgement about Nestorius.

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prudential reasons, not being too demanding in the use of language with regard to those who repent, for the matter … requires a great deal of charity.’7 eodosius’ long-delayed decision to exile Nestorius, too, must have gone a certain way towards placating Cyril.

T N O Perhaps because of difficulties they pose for official or generally accepted interpretations, difficulties that should probably be traced to early attempts to rule them out of court,8 Cyril’s letters to his loyal supporters from the period immediately following the signing of the Union – the long letter to Acacius of Melitene, a short letter to Eulogius, his representative in Constantinople, two letters to Succensus,9 and a long letter to Valerian of Iconium – have never been taken as seriously by scholarship as they deserve, nor have they had the benefit of secure dating, this being not an uncommon problem with his letters. To ignore them is, however, to miss an absolutely crucial transformation of the ongoing controversy. It was in these letters that Cyril reinterpreted himself and his subscription to the Union in such a decisive new way, and with such distinctive formulae, that it became possible with some appearance of credibility to oppose to this Cyril-of-the-new-formulae some version of the Cyril represented by earlier statements. It became possible, that is, to choose one ‘Cyril’ over another, depending on which texts you privileged, and what cause you wished to claim his mantle for. e battle between versions of Cyril thus replaced the battle between Cyril and Nestorius with which the controversy had begun. e path of the controversy took a new direction. We have revealing evidence as to how the ‘Nestorians’ in question saw things at this critical juncture. It comes from Sessions 9 and 10 of Chalcedon, during which the council turned to the interesting case of one of these Nestorians, Ibas of Edessa. ese sessions responded to appeals – both entered by Ibas – against what was claimed to have been his 7. Cyril, Letter to Maximus the Deacon of Antioch, ed. E. Schwartz, Codex Vaticanus gr. 1431: eine antichalkedonische Sammlung aus der Zeit Kaiser Zenos (AAM, Bd. 32. Abh. 6; München, 1927), p. 21, tr. FC 77, p. 39. 8. e pro-Chalcedonian participants, for instance, in the Conversations of 532 with anti-Chalcedonians, raised doubts about the authenticity and authority of these letters, consigning them to the class of suspect or lower-tier sources. Anti-Chalcedonians fiercely repudiated this claim. 9. What Cyril said of Succensus he might have said of any one of them: he was one of ‘the brethren of ours, who share our faith and sympathies’. Cyril, Second Letter to Succensus 1, Wickham, pp. 83–84.

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corrupt prosecution at Ephesus II. e process involved, naturally enough, the examination of relevant documents and verbal reports, one of which, fortunately for us, dates to 433 and, yet more fortunately, consists of a letter Ibas wrote to his friend Mari ‘the Persian’ reporting and commenting on the very events we have an interest in. In 433 the see of Edessa, of which Ibas was a cleric at the time, was part of the vast war zone that was the eastern church in the years 431–33 as the parties in the wake of Ephesus I attempted to construct a victory out of the ensuing chaos. Edessa’s bishop was Rabbula who – a sign of the times! – dramatically abandoned the Antiochene side and embraced Cyril’s in 431, then turned around and attacked his former hero, eodore of Mopsuestia.10 e battle would see-saw back and forth, the Nestorian Ibas becoming bishop of Edessa when Rabbula died in 435. Neither appointment suggested a peaceful resolution was likely in Edessa or beyond. In the Letter to Mari Ibas explained what had been going on. Nestorius, he told Mari, had been mistaken for a heretic in the line of Paul of Samosata, but it was Cyril, in his hate-motivated fight against Nestorius, who had actually fallen into heresy, the heresy of Apollinarius. It was Cyril, too, he claimed, who set up the major roadblock in the way of peace: he had ‘proclaimed and confirmed the Twelve Chapters’ at Ephesus.11 We have argued that the chapters were rather introduced to prove Nestorius’ persistence in heresy than proclaimed or confirmed. Nonetheless, their presence in the minutes goes some way towards explaining the Antiochenes’ continuing detestation of Cyril and desperation to find a way of neutralizing him. Ibas correctly charged the anathemas (actually the fourth) with condemning the dividing up of sayings, but incorrectly had them asserting ‘that there is one nature of the Godhead and the manhood’. e third anathema may have implied such a thing, but none of the anathemas actually used the expression ‘one nature’.12 (It needs to be remembered, too, that ‘one nature’ was not, pace a widespread assumption to the contrary, anything like a characteristic doctrine of Cyril’s until late in 433, an episode to be addressed shortly.) But Ibas, writing in 433, must either have been familiar with the direction in which Cyril was moving, or have concluded that, since he had supposedly dried into Apollinarianism, he shared its one-nature language. e already-muddled narrative Ibas and his fellows held was thus further muddled. Ironically, the very negative interpretation the Nestorian narrative drew of Cyril implied a very 10. Ibas of Edessa, Letter to Mari the Persian, ACO II, I, 3, 138, p. 33, tr. ACC II, p. 297. 11. ACO II, I, 3, 138, p. 32, tr. ACC II, pp. 295–96. 12. ACO II, I, 3, 138, p. 32, tr. ACC II, p. 296.

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positive assessment of the Union of 433 for if, as they believed, Cyril had absolutely insisted on ‘one nature’ and the twelve anathemas, and had actually strayed into Apollinarianism, then his arriving at any kind of peace with John could involve nothing less than capitulation on every one of those points. What happened was something of a miracle, Ibas’ narrative went on to claim: Cyril did capitulate by signing the ‘Union’. God, Ibas told Mari, ‘chose to soen even the heart of the Egyptian [Cyril], with the result that he assented to the faith without trouble and accepted it, and anathematized all those whose beliefs are contrary to it.’ Moreover, those who like Cyril had ‘lawlessly assailed the living [Nestorius] and the dead [eodore] are … apologizing … for no one now dares to say that there is one nature of Godhead and manhood …’ Ibas claimed victory: Cyril having capitulated, ‘controversy was removed … and peace returned to the church …’13 It was to prove a hollow victory.

C, J,   C  N In the Letter to Eulogius, Cyril describes succinctly how the same turn of events looked to him: e doctrinal statement which the Easterns have produced [the Union] is under attack in certain quarters and it is being asked why the bishop of Alexandria tolerated, even applauded it, seeing that they use the words ‘two natures’. e Nestorians are saying that he shares their view and are winning those who do not know the precise facts over to their side.14

e letter to Acacius raises the same alarm, but it also brings the faction led by John of Antioch into the picture: For, as I have said, distraught at the peace between the holy Churches, [the Nestorians] disparage those who refuse to entertain their mischievous notions and make bitter accusations against the explanations of the holy bishops – the Easterns, I mean. Consequently wresting that explanation in their favourite direction and misinterpreting it they are asserting that it is not out of key with Nestorius’s vanities.15

e same things are at stake whichever iteration one chooses to accept: Cyril’s subscription to the ‘Union’, and specifically to its last sentence 13. ACO II, I, 3, 138, p. 34, tr. ACC II, p. 298. 14. Cyril, Letter to Eulogius, Wickham, pp. 62–63. 15. Cyril, Letter to Acacius of Melitene, Wickham, pp. 42–43. See also his Letter to Valerian of Iconium 21, ACO I, I, 3, p. 100, tr. FC 76, p. 227: Cyril vigorously insists that ‘the God-fearing bishops throughout all the East, along with my lord John … condemn the “profane novelties” of Nestorius …’

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permitting theologizing about two natures, has done more than leave a safe space for Antiochenes like John, or indirectly rule out Apollinarianism; it has allowed ‘Nestorians’ to argue that Cyril has been converted to their position. ere is not much doubt that the Nestorians’ claims were most unwelcome to the bishops of John of Antioch’s camp. eir heretofore promising attempt to slip into the agreed statement ambivalent words they could take to be permission to carry on their enterprise in private absolutely required that they not draw this kind of attention to useful ambivalences, let alone claim that Cyril had been converted to an openly Nestorian position they had themselves purportedly disowned! e most John of Antioch had done in that vein was to write confidentially to some of his Antiochene colleagues pointing out that Cyril had confessed a ‘difference of natures’ and a division of gospel sayings in relation to natures, as indeed was the case. To say even so much was perhaps impolitic of him: word had gotten out to some on Cyril’s side, and they were ‘scandalized’.16 Nestorius himself, if we have understood him correctly, was much more likely to support John’s approach than that of his diehard loyalists. Aer all, to support the latter would have been to undermine the very strategy he himself proposed by outing as overtly Nestorian the very passage intended to disguise ongoing Antiochene theologians. As for the Nestorians’ self-image, one may suppose that they were proud to bear the name of ‘Nestorian’, were fiercely loyal to Nestorius himself, and resented the selfserving and cowardly deception they took John of Antioch’s subscription to the ‘Union’ to be. S  U It was, of course, impossible for Cyril to ignore the alarming and, surely, totally unexpected propaganda campaign being waged against him. It cannot have been easy, however, for the man who saw himself, and had universally been seen, as the arch-opponent of Nestorian ideas, to think in the entirely new terms required if he was to defend himself against the ludicrous charge of being a Nestorian! He, Cyril, would have to defend what he agreed to in the Union concerning the two natures, the two realities, of Christ in a way acceptable to people who had always agreed most emphatically with him that Christ was not two but one person/entity/hypostasis!17 16. Cyril, Letter to Acacius of Melitene, Wickham, pp. 56–57. 17. We have observed Cyril’s characteristically insouciant use of terms for the duality of Christ. We have seen that he was, substantively, a dyophysite, without conceptualizing

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e situation obviously demanded a vigorous response. One pathway forward was decidedly not open to him: his own pride undoubtedly precluded any repudiation of the Union, whether by that word one refers to the reconciliation with the Antiochenes, or to the document by which it was achieved; had it not, the emperor most assuredly would have blocked any attempt to repudiate the Union. He had brought the parties with great difficulty to this fragile peace; it was the one positive accomplishment imperial policy could claim aer its disastrous failure to hold the church together at Ephesus, and aer its first clumsy attempts to correct that failure with heavy-handed punitive measures during the long months of continuing schism between the patriarchs. For the emperor, the Union therefore could not be permitted to fail. For John of Antioch, too, the most obvious imperative must have been somehow to maintain the ‘Union’, not an easy thing to achieve given that the other signatory to the agreement was now intensely aware that its last sentence could be construed, indeed was being construed as out and out Nestorianism.

W D  U C O T e correspondence shows that, distressingly for Cyril, the Union was being so construed, not just by his enemies, but also by some of his friends; among the less theologically-alert of them, any way of asserting two natures was by now suspect. If he, for his part, was to succeed in regaining the confidence of his confused and dubious supporters while refusing to renounce the Union, he would have to find a way to redeem it, again whether we mean the reconciliation itself or the document of reconciliation, in their eyes. Specifically, he would have to find a way to show how his approval of the Union’s last sentence, and therefore of its ‘two natures’, could be held together with a robust affirmation of Christ’s oneness, and perhaps also with his apparent condemnation of such twonatures talk in the fourth anathema. ese imperatives were to lead him to formulate a new understanding of two-natures talk that was, unlike the understanding imputed to it by the Nestorians, perfectly harmonious with his and his followers’ profound belief in the oneness of Christ. is, he could claim to his sympathizers, was what he – and the tradition of that belief or adopting a set terminology. Precisely because he had used terms like ‘person’, ‘hypostasis’, ‘entity’, and ‘nature’ imprecisely to assert with equal insouciance the unity of Christ, it was possible for his followers to think that the fourth anathema’s proscription of ascribing gospel sayings and actions to two ‘hypostases’ or ‘persons’ proscribed also ascribing those sayings to two ‘natures’.

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the fathers, which he always claimed to represent – meant when there was talk of two natures. He could even claim to them that this was, substantively, what John of Antioch also meant by it, though John himself was not likely to agree; what the emperor would make of this tactic and the new situation remained to be seen. By far the most significant feature of the letters we are dealing with involved the new way Cyril explained the subscription to two-natures language that had made him appear to have been converted to Nestorianism. We may, however take a little time first to notice other related criticisms he had to deal with, and that would resurface time and time again to plague the interpretation of the Union. For one thing, there was the simple but unpleasant fact that he had undeniably entered into an agreement with ‘the Easterners’, the very enemies who had joined in the John’s Council against his, and had there supported Nestorius. Cyril himself was determined to treat them as allies he had won over, if not as friends, but his sympathizers could not so easily shed their hostility towards all Antiochenes. Did Cyril’s unexpected agreement with them not in itself imply that he had at least begun to flirt with the enemy, with Nestorianism? e mere fact that he had subscribed to what seemed to be an agreed ‘statement of faith’ with those Easterners was suspicious, and by the way, did it not mean that he had betrayed Ephesus’ prohibition of new creeds? e Letter to Acacius is invaluable when dealing with these issues, and not just because, as Cyril himself says, it gives ‘a good account of all matters’ to do with the crisis. It actually gives rather more than an historical account.18 It is a carefully thought out defence of Cyril’s actions intended, no doubt, for wide circulation on the pattern of his previous letters. It of course addresses the natures issue, but it also works very hard at presenting a favourable analysis of the context in which Cyril subscribed to the troublesome last sentence of the Union. e first section of the letter traces the history of the Nestorian controversy up to the signing of the Union, responding, clearly enough, to Acacius’ request for clarification as to what has been going on.19 In the process, however, Cyril lays heavy emphasis on his own insistence at the time that it be John of Antioch himself, by way of proving his acceptance of Nestorius’ condemnation, who should ‘set forth a written profession of faith concerning these matters’.20 Cyril’s point is that the document is not his, and its words cannot be presumed to be the words he would have chosen. e next section’s theme, one of 18. Cyril, Letter to Eulogius, Wickham, pp. 66–67. 19. Cyril, Letter to Acacius of Melitene 2–4, Wickham, pp. 32–43. 20. Cyril, Letter to Acacius of Melitene 4, Wickham, pp. 40–41.

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the central narratives of the letter, builds on this point as part of a response to the Nestorians’ claim that Cyril, by subscribing, has ‘accepted a doctrinal statement, or a new creed’.21 e Union was by no means a ‘doctrinal statement’ or a ‘creed’, Cyril says, let alone his doctrinal statement. It was not even an ‘explanation’, that is, an attempt to represent in other words what the one creed that mattered, the Creed of Nicaea, said, such as some of the fathers had offered, or the Council of Ephesus had recognized in Cyril’s Second Letter to Nestorius. It was something much more modest. When the Antiochene bishops, by their actions at Ephesus, gave themselves the appearance of being ‘caught in the snares of the blasphemies of Nestorius’, asserts Cyril, they ‘rather sensibly’ were eager to ‘satisfy fully the lovers of the blameless faith’ by disowning those blasphemies, and this they did by composing an ‘apology’, that is, a formal statement of defence. By its very nature, of course, an apology is composed by a defendant, not by two or more parties as is an agreed creed or doctrinal statement. e word ‘apology’ signifies that, on the view Cyril is promoting, the Antiochenes were simply ‘speaking in their own defense and conciliating those who had thought that they were following the novel expressions of Nestorius’, a very different kind of thing from proposing an agreed document of faith.22 Cyril’s argument so far offers an interpretation of what kind of document he has signed: it is the Antiochenes’ own document, and it comprises their apology for their position, with its particular way of expressing the faith. Subscribing to it cannot be anything like subscribing to a creed or doctrinal statement – which is what the Nestorians claim he has done. Not only is it the Antiochenes’ apology; Cyril claims to find in it an honest and helpful apology he can counter-sign in good faith. ey have shown that what they were doing was not changing their view, but freeing themselves from the impression they had falsely given of being heretical; they were innocently ‘answering and clarifying the meaning of their opinion’.23 is eirenic construction of the behaviour of the Antiochenes around John of Antioch (they were always substantively orthodox but, having allowed themselves to appear, for reasons difficult to understand, to be Nestorian at Ephesus, they now sensibly have realized they need to demonstrate their true orthodoxy by means of a formal statement of defence) was obviously intended to clear Cyril of the charges that he had entered into union with known Nestorians, and had, contrary to the Council of Ephesus, subscribed to a new, Nestorian creed. Rather, what he had 21. Cyril, Letter to Acacius of Melitene 6, Wickham, pp. 42–43. 22. Cyril, Letter to Acacius of Melitene 7, Wickham, pp. 44–45. 23. Cyril, Letter to Acacius of Melitene 7, Wickham, pp. 44–45.

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done by subscribing to the Union, he was arguing, was only to accept the Antiochenes’ statement of defence as demonstrating to his satisfaction their substantive, if not perfectly expressed, orthodoxy. ough it included the last sentence of the Union, it also included, he pointed out, all the rest of the Union’s assertions – a catalogue of Cyrillian slogans that made up almost the entire document. ose Cyril could and did contrast with texts from Nestorius, in his presentation the one certain Nestorian. e Nestorian texts were to be contrasted also with the Antiochenes’ mere, and temporary, appearance of being Nestorian. e Antiochenes, he says, surely thereby demonstrated their orthodoxy, and thereby justified a friendly assessment of what they meant by that problematic last sentence of the Union, and what Cyril was implicated in by having subscribed to it along with the unexceptionably orthodox remainder of the document.24 e broad charge of having embraced Nestorians and a Nestorian creed on the basis of his having subscribed to the Union with John et al. was thus, Cyril no doubt hoped he had shown, without merit. So far, Cyril’s interpretation need not have been problematic. If this had been all he wrote, the Nestorians could perhaps have been faced down, the Antiochenes under John of Antioch could have saved face, and the ‘Union’ might have survived without serious difficulty. Cyril, however, had an eye also on his sympathizers; what they wanted to know, as a matter of supreme importance, was what on earth he had meant by agreeing to say ‘two natures’ if not Nestorianism. His answer would take the controversy in quite a different direction.

W  C M  ‘T N’ Maybe Cyril had not converted to Nestorianism. Maybe the Union really was just the Antiochenes’ apology. Maybe Cyril had just accepted it, not agreed to it. ese were points with some persuasive power in explaining Cyril’s subscription to the Union, but the hard fact was, he had subscribed to a document that in some way committed him to ‘two natures’, and it would be all too easy for those who had been on his side all along to see the admission of ‘two natures’ (without a preposition), an expression identified with Nestorius, as a betrayal of all they had stood for.25 24. Cyril, Letter to Acacius of Melitene 13 and 15, Wickham, pp. 48–51 and 50–55. 25. ‘Two natures’ without a preposition could be a simple assertion of the divinehuman duality of Christ, but it could also be the assertion that the concrete Christ aer the Incarnation had or was in two natures. To add ‘in’ was to make it absolutely clear that one was making the latter assertion. Too oen Cyrillian opposition to ‘two natures’

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What did he mean by it? His sympathizers wanted to know the answer to that question, and would not be satisfied with anything less than a convincing explanation. A preliminary way of answering the question for Cyril was to explain that the Antiochene, as opposed to the Nestorian, use of ‘two natures’ had arisen in a specific historical context: it had been enunciated by the Antiochenes against Arian and Apollinarian thinking, a particular and, one had to admit, admirable concern of theirs. Both heresies saw the Word’s becoming man as involving a merging of divine and human into a new nature that was less than fully divine, and that, Cyril said, was why the Antiochene statement insisted on dividing the gospel expressions between natures: only so could those expressing weakness, such as ‘I am thirsty’, be associated with Christ’s humanity, rather than with the incarnate Word as a whole, which would of course show the Word to be inferior to the impassible Father.26 It was to correct John’s impression that he, Cyril, harboured Arian and Apollinarian ideas that he subscribed to John’s statement denying, in the crucial last sentence, any belief in the merger of Word and flesh, and recognizing the real difference implied by the gospel sayings. What he in fact affirmed, he said, was ‘the Lord speaking both divinely and humanly, since he is at once God and man’, which will be recognized as the assertion that a single entity acted in two different ways, rather than the assertion that two entities were acting separately.27 at is, of course, Cyril’s preferred and traditional way of expressing things, like the Nicene creed presenting God the Word as the subject of all his activities, both divine and human. It leaves no room whatsoever for what Nestorius was accused of thinking, that the natures were distinct subjects of two different kinds of activities. Here Cyril takes up again the subtle line of thinking we saw before whereby he accepts that he agrees substantially with John while making it clear that the words of the Union are John’s words, and not the way he, Cyril, would put it. It was a mistake, Cyril says, for John to conclude, and to pass the conclusion on to some of his colleagues, that he Cyril ‘told people clearly and in strong language to affirm the difference between the natures and divide the terms in conformity with the natures …’28 In that way of putting things he recognizes John’s desire to express what he himself is saying when he talks about the (without a preposition) is taken to be opposition to the divine-human duality and therefore tantamount to Monophysitism, when it is actually opposition to ‘two natures after the Incarnation’. 26. Cyril, Letter to Acacius of Melitene 19, Wickham, pp. 56–57. 27. Cyril, Letter to Acacius of Melitene 20, Wickham, pp. 58–59. 28. Cyril, Letter to Acacius of Melitene 20, Wickham, pp. 56–57.

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Word speaking in a divine way and in a human way, but he says very firmly indeed ‘such statements are not mine, but have been uttered by him.’29 Clearly he thinks something is, if not wrong, then incomplete or potentially misleading about John’s assertion. What that is becomes clear when he compares John’s teaching with Nestorius’ on natures. Both name two natures. ‘e Antiochene brethren, on the other hand, taking the recognized elements of Christ at the level only of ideas, have mentioned a difference of natures.’ Unlike true Nestorians, however, they go on to balance that assertion by another which excludes a Nestorian interpretation: they ‘proclaim one Son and Christ and Lord as being truly one’, and ‘say his person is one’. is is how they demonstrate their substantial orthodoxy, and Cyril accepts it. e fact is, though, that their way of expressing orthodoxy involves maintaining two distinct things at the same time, one being Christ’s unity, the other being his two natures, either of which by itself could easily be misunderstood. Affirming the difference of natures in the way that they do, that is, by affirming two natures without the balancing affirmation, too easily invites a Nestorian interpretation.30 Cyril’s language, on the other hand, combines the sense of each of the assertions that together made up the Antiochenes’ supposed orthodoxy in an obviously superior way because it involves a single complete assertion: the Word spoke in a divine way and in a human way at the same time. What Cyril was establishing he had not committed himself to, on this evidence, was any claim that what the Antiochenes had written in the last sentence of the Union was the best way to say what needed to be said about natures and their relation to different gospel expressions, or that it was the way of talking Cyril himself espoused. It was merely an acceptable way to talk of difficult matters that are, Cyril agrees, ‘exceedingly hard to express …’ so that ‘[t]hough for some the phraseology and choice of language may lack the last degree of refinement and precision, there is no cause for surprise – things like this are very hard to put into words.’31 In the letter to Eulogius, he puts it less delicately: ‘ese truths [about natures and gospel expressions] the Easterns acknowledged, even if they were somewhat in the dark about the phraseology.’32 Cyril was obviously engaged upon a complicated balancing act – maintaining the legitimacy of his union with the Antiochenes and the substantive accuracy of the Union document’s language, while admitting the Antiochenes’ confusion 29. 30. 31. 32.

Cyril, Letter to Acacius of Melitene 20, Wickham, pp. 58–59. Cyril, Letter to Acacius of Melitene 15, Wickham, pp. 52–53. Cyril, Letter to Acacius of Melitene 18, Wickham, pp. 54–55. Cyril, Letter to Eulogius, Wickham, pp. 64–65.

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on the finer points, and characterizing their way of putting things as at best a somewhat unsatisfactory but in the end adequate apology, an apology he had merely accepted, not taken up as his own. e key question posed by his sympathizers remained. What then did he mean by speaking of two natures if not the dividing of Christ? What was – as compared with his new Antiochene allies’ admittedly shaky way of putting things – the properly satisfactory and unconfused way of parsing Christ’s two natures and at the same time his unity?

B  A  U e Nestorians had seized upon and trumpeted a contradiction they claimed Cyril was caught in. He had upheld the oneness of Christ against Nestorius’ willingness to divide Christ, and in his fourth anathema had even condemned outright talk of two persons, hypostases, or, by implication it could be thought, natures.33 en, in the Union, he had approved talk of two natures and therefore had joined in dividing Christ.34 Was he now for two natures, or for one Christ and therefore one nature? Was he now a Nestorian, or not? at was the simple question. Depending on his answer, he could lose, or reclaim, the support of his sympathizers. But, as we have remarked before, to disown the Union would bring down on him the emperor’s wrath and his own embarrassment. Cyril needed an answer that allowed him to say he was in some convincing sense both for one Christ/one nature, and for the two natures he had spoken of insouciantly in the Second Letter and had agreed to in the ‘Union’, thus allowing him to maintain his accord with John of Antioch while claiming he had in no way abandoned the faith he had been defending all along in the one Christ, and that he had always shared with his army of sympathizers.

33. e actual words of the anathema are as follows: ‘If anyone attributes to two persons, that is to two hypostases, the sayings in the Gospels and apostolic writings … let him be anathema’: ACO I, I, 1, p. 41. Given Cyril’s flexible use of terms, where ‘person’, ‘hypostasis’, ‘entity’, and ‘nature’ could be used interchangeably to point to realities, whether of distinction or of identity, it is understandable that the Nestorians felt they could interpret the anathema as forbidding the attribution of gospel sayings to two natures. It was something of a stretch, though, to take the fourth anathema as forbidding all talk of two natures, when it was specifically addressed to the issue of distinct subjects of the actions and sayings in the gospels. 34. Cyril, Letter to John of Antioch, ACO I, I, 4, p. 17. Partial translation: Wickham, p. 222. ‘We recognize that theologians treat some as shared because they refer to one person, some they refer separately to two natures …’

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Part of the caution with which the Antiochenes had composed the Union document was to be found in their avoidance of a specific preposition in connection with the two natures it posited. at is to say, the document did not specify that Christ was ‘in’ two natures, a formulation that would have set off alarm bells for Cyril. Now, however, the Nestorians were assuming that subscribing to the document was an admission that Christ was in two natures. Cyril’s answer to the challenge they posed took advantage of the absence of a preposition in the document to propose a new way of acknowledging natures in Christ. He had never, he said, intended to say that Christ was in two natures. What he did was to separate the elements of the disjunction one nature/two natures in terms of a sort of notional time difference between ‘before the Incarnation/union’ and ‘aer the Incarnation/union’.35 What the Nestorians did not grasp, what his Antiochene colleagues had not yet found a fully satisfactory way of expressing yet implicitly believed, and what his confused sympathizers needed to recognize, he said, was that both ‘two natures’ and ‘one nature’ were true, but the former was true ‘before’ – and here the importance of what preposition was implied becomes crucial – and the latter ‘aer’, the Incarnation.36 Christ, that is, was ‘out of two natures’ before the Incarnation, but was ‘one incarnate nature’ aer the union.37 When Cyril subscribed to the famous last sentence of the Union document, he was now in retrospect asserting, he had been saying that he believed Christ was ‘out of ’, but not ‘in’, two natures. at was ‘before’ the incarnation, that is, when the human mind considered notionally what it would mean for the Word to become flesh, and to ‘take the form of a servant’; in that reflection, it ‘is bound to observe two things joined together in union with each other mysteriously and without merger’.38 at is quite different from what the mind sees when it turns to the actual incarnate Christ: it ‘in no way divides what are united but believes and firmly accepts that the product of both elements is one God, Son, Christ, and Lord.’39 e Christ Cyril and his sympathizers had always believed in, the Christ they observed 35. Cyril, First Letter to Succensus 7, Wickham, pp. 76–77: ‘So far, then, as the question of the manner of the Only-begotten’s becoming man appears for purely mental consideration by the mind’s eye, our own view is that there are two united natures but one Christ …’ It is this mental consideration that takes place ‘before the union’ – i.e. before one considers the actual, single Christ himself in concreto in the gospels – and by which one discerns in a state of abstraction different natures out of which he is composed. 36. It is evidently in connection with exactly this point that Cyril says the Antiochenes were confused about the correct phraseology. 37. ere seems to be no satisfactory way of avoiding some confusion, since he equates ‘aer the union’ with ‘aer the Incarnation’. 38. Cyril, Letter to Acacius of Melitene 14, Wickham, pp. 50–51. 39. Cyril, Letter to Acacius of Melitene 14, Wickham, pp. 50–51.

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in scripture, worshipped as Word-made-flesh, and partook of in eucharist, was observably one in his incarnate actuality. ere is an added twist. To bolster what he is saying, and to invest it with the authority of the tradition of the fathers, Cyril here presses into service for the first time40 a famous (or infamous) pseudo-Athanasian formula: ‘Aer the union, since the distinction into two is now done away with, we believe that there is one phusis [nature] of the Son, as one, however, who became man and was made flesh.’41 ‘One incarnate nature of the Word of God’ was destined almost instantly to become a key distinctive and battle-cry of Cyril’s partisans, along with ‘out of two natures’, in the continuing and ever-evolving christological controversy, and the bête noire of Antiochenes. For our purposes, that is the important point. How Cyril might or might not explain or defend his new christological language is not of great importance. We shall therefore spend only a short moment on it. It would be a mistake to expect of Cyril here or anywhere else a philosophically satisfying and conceptually sophisticated way of understanding how the Incarnation he believed in took place. In the letter to Acacius, his first known response to the crisis caused by the Nestorian attack, he makes only a simple assertion along lines already discussed: ‘Accordingly, whenever the manner of the Incarnation is closely considered, the human mind doubtless sees the two ineffably and unconfusedly joined to each other in a union; but the mind in no wise divides them aer they have been united, but believes and admits strongly that the one from both is God and Son and Christ and Lord’.42 Le to himself, it is hard to imagine he would have attempted to explain what he meant in any more definite way. Had he not all along maintained at once the oneness and the duality of Christ, invoking the ineffability of God’s ways as the only real answer to the, to him trivial, question of how there could be simultaneously unity and duality? Logic, and conceptual precision, were not appropriate when one spoke of the mystery of God. e trouble was that logic and conceptual precision were being deployed against him: the letters to Succensus show that some of his sympathizers were troubled by logical arguments in the form of aporiae posed by the Nestorians. In their aporiae, cited in the Second Letter to Succensus, the essential argument 40. As has been pointed out in chapter 2, this formula, so oen supposed to have been long favoured by Cyril, actually was echoed only once or twice, and only in passing, by Cyril until this moment. Its adoption by him at this juncture obviously reflects rather his desperate need to find a way of defending himself in the current crisis than his preferred way of articulating christology. 41. Cyril, Letter to Acacius of Melitene 12, Wickham, pp. 48–49. 42. Cyril, Letter to Acacius of Melitene 14, Wickham, pp. 50–51.

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against Cyril’s formulations was the following.43 If Christ was out of two natures before the union, but was one nature in/aer the union, only so many outcomes were logically possible: either the two natures had been mixed together into one new nature, or the human nature had been absorbed by the divine nature, or the divine nature had been absorbed by the human. All of these conclusions being blasphemous, the two natures could not have become one. What Succensus and his people wanted to know, given that this kind of argument was being posed, was ‘whether or not one should ever speak of two natures in respect of Christ …’ 44 Cyril’s rejoinder was that there existed in the everyday world a perfectly good example, using the word ‘nature/s’, of the kind of union he was talking about that yet did not issue in the unacceptable alternatives posed by the Nestorians’ aporiae. at was the union of soul and body in a human being, a paradigm he makes rather laborious reference to whenever he can. Soul and body represent, he argues, two natures whose reality we can always intellectually grasp in a human being before a human being comes into existence, but when they are united in a concrete human being, what we observe is a single reality, a single ‘nature’. In the end, it is of little importance for our understanding of the history of this controversy what one thinks of the new formulae – ‘out of two natures’ and ‘one incarnate nature’ – Cyril takes up to counter the Nestorians’ attack. It is of little importance what one thinks of his attempt to provide a defence for them. It matters not at all whether that defence was philosophically coherent, let alone sustainable. Dogmaticians have taken very different stances on those issues. What matters for history was the way Cyril’s proposal of new formulae – explanations of his subscription to the Union, it must be remembered, not creedal statements, for he was unalterably opposed to thinking that any new doctrinal formulations could contribute to an advance beyond the Creed as interpreted by Ephesus I – reframed the ongoing controversy. And reframe it they did, for it was seemingly impossible to reconcile Cyril’s ‘one incarnate nature [aer the Incarnation]’ with what John’s Antiochenes and their Nestorian outriders insisted on, ‘two natures [aer the Incarnation]’, and that meant that agreement between the parties was logically impossible. 43. In an aporia, literally a ‘dead end’, a disputant pointed out the dead ends implied by an opponent’s position. An aporia took the following form: If my opponent says x, then y follows, but that is impossible, since y is blasphemous/ridiculous/illogical (at a dead end). But if, alternatively, he says z, then … and so on until only one option, the ‘correct’ one, the one that does not entail an unacceptable position, is le. 44. Cyril, First Letter to Succensus 2, Wickham, pp. 70–71. I take it that Cyril’s response incorporates pretty well Succensus’ question.

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Strangely enough, the crisis one might have expected over the new formulae did not arrive for some years. Aer writing the two letters to Succensus, Cyril simply stopped mentioning the formulae, an extraordinary move. Had he decided against them in some way? ey later had such tremendous importance for those who had the strongest claims of loyalty to him, as will be seen when we come to the trial of Eutyches and the Second Council of Ephesus, where they are central to everything, that it hardly seems possible he had turned against them of his own accord. In the end, though in the absence of evidence it can only be conjectural, the most plausible explanation for his sudden lapse into silence is again the simplest: the Emperor eodosius was not, if he could help it, about to allow Cyril’s second thoughts as to what he had or had not meant when he subscribed to the Union – second thoughts which, if taken seriously, would rule out his reconciliation with an Antiochene position – to jeopardize the hard-won peace. Cyril and John had subscribed to an agreed statement of faith, and however vague the wording that meant they agreed and were officially at peace. No one was to say anything more about the troublesome formulae. In short, we conclude that Cyril was muzzled by an emperor fed up with ecclesiastical spoilers of the peace. Something of crucial importance had happened, though: the issue of natures, long unsuspected by Cyril of having any central importance, had moved at last to the centre of the stage. From now on, the sides would identify themselves more and more by what they said about natures. Moreover, from now on, there was the potential for the sides to identify themselves as the side of Cyril-of-the-new-formulae, or as the side of Cyril-of-the-Union. e ongoing Nestorian Controversy was reframed in other ways too, and not just in that the new stance of the Cyrillian side meant that real agreement was now impossible. ere was a reframing of the texts used in the controversy. Two possible keys to interpreting Cyrillian orthodoxy were now in a kind of limbo, the twelve anathemas, and the new-formulae letters. Both posed a potential menace to whatever peace obtained between Cyril and the Antiochenes, since neither could be reconciled, even superficially, with the Antiochene tradition. Sadly for eodosius, he had not heard the last of Cyril’s new formulae, though he had heard the last of them from Cyril himself. ey would return to haunt him and the subsequent controversy, perhaps in an even more lethal form as a result of the suppression endured. It was not a promising sign for peace that Rabbula of Edessa, that opponent of Ibas whose name is associated with a history of violence, would insist on ‘one nature’ language for his diocese, or that Ibas, when he succeeded Rabbula, was equally violent on the opposite side.45 45. Report by Andrew of Samosata, ACO I, IV, pp. 86–87.

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D  T For the time being the issue of the new formulae remained quiescent, but there were other ways of carrying on the struggle beneath the cover of supposed peace. Cyril’s allies had already identified one of them: attack the Antiochenes indirectly by attacking the orthodoxy of their founding father, Diodore of Tarsus, and their great teacher eodore of Mopsuestia. Acacius of Melitene, for one, drew a causal connection between them and Nestorius.46 e same Rabbula of Edessa, for another, went so far as to anathematize eodore.47 Proclus of Constantinople attacked the heresy of ‘anonymous’ fragments that were really excerpts from eodore.48 Cyril joined in the attack in a series of letters.49 Antiochenes naturally fought back, notably Ibas, who translated excerpts from eodore into Syriac, declaring them orthodox.50 Like the introduction of the new formulae, Cyril’s role in attacking the Antiochene founders and fathers ended in silence, though again some of his followers did not desist when he did. e issue was to have an aerlife, most dramatically in the ree Chapters Controversy of the Sixth Century. As with the new formulae, Cyril’s lapse into silence here is probably to be explained by an imperial clampdown. For fieen long years, in fact, as one threat aer another emerged, eodosius found himself, time aer time, engaged in trying to shore up the fragile peace he had brokered between Cyril and John, and keep it from unravelling. With the wisdom of hindsight, we can see that Cyril’s articulation of new formulae in response to the Nestorian attack, formulae that were completely indigestible to anyone of Antiochene sympathies, introduced the gravest danger to peace. eodosius, we assume, saw something of the danger, but what we take to be his approach, inducing Cyril to stop speaking about them for the rest of his life, only delayed the day of reckoning. eir potential to divide the church and destroy such peace as had been achieved remained enormous. Depressingly for eodosius, there was no equivalent development with the potential to bring the sides closer together, to strengthen the Union, or to expand it beyond the two patriarchates. ere was no such development, that is, until 448 and the emergence of the strategy attempted at the trial of Eutyches.

46. Acacius of Melitene, Letter to Cyril, ACO I, IV, pp. 118–19. 47. Report by Andrew of Samosata, ACO I, IV, pp. 86–87. 48. Proclus, Tome to the Armenians, ACO IV, 2, pp. 187–95. 49. Cyril, the collection of letters now numbered 66–74. 50. See Rudolph Devreesse, Essai sur Théodore de Mopsueste (ST 141; Città del Vaticano, 1948), pp. 137–38 and 239, n. 6.

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A C’ D Between 444, the year of Cyril’s death, and 448 tensions rose markedly. On the Antiochene side, for instance, eodoret stirred the pot with his continuing and open loyalty to Nestorius, as did he, or someone in his camp, in the clever satire, ca. 447, of simple-minded Cyrillians, Eranistes. eodoret had become known for his open criticisms of Cyril, and his revival of the Antiochene campaign to glorify Diodore and eodore.51 Well-based Cyrillian fears that Antiochenes in general continued to stand by Nestorius, overtly or covertly, were heightened by the openly Nestorian stance of men like Count Irenaeus, irregularly-elected bishop of Tyre, and a fierce Antiochene. When Irenaeus was deposed on an imperial order that also, not coincidentally, renewed the ban on Nestorius’ writings, the Cyrillians’ fears were further heightened by news of the hostile reaction in Antioch to the ban.52 In response, Dioscorus of Alexandria on the Cyrillian side wrote to Domnus, John of Antioch’s successor, to insist that eodoret be sanctioned for not accepting the twelve anathemas, thus reviving an Antiochene nightmare; it was in reply to this that Domnus wrote claiming that everything he and eodoret stood for fell within the statement of faith of the Union.53 Antiochenes in this period thus aggressively pushed a Nestorian-flavoured interpretation of the Union that it was impossible for any Cyrillian to accept, and Cyrillians began to raise the stakes for their part by insisting that any Antiochene claim to be in agreement with Cyril under the Union must include in addition agreement to the – to Antiochenes totally unacceptable – twelve anathemas. Apples of discord were in good supply. How long would it be before the letters to Acacius and Succensus with the new Cyrillian formulae interpreting the Union were likewise brought into play? How long could the peace based on the Union hold when each side interpreted it in ways increasingly designed, not to include, but to exclude the other, and did so in increasingly hostile tones? Only the emperor was actually fighting for genuine reconciliation and peace rather than victory for one side over the other. Side-lining the contentious eodoret by confining him to his diocese, as eodosius did in the summer of 448, was another minor intervention in that cause, but minor interventions had no real chance of defusing the increasingly explosive situation.54 ings could not be le as they were. 51. As was claimed by his ally, Domnus of Antioch: Akten der ephesinischen Synode von Jahre 449, ed. and tr. Johannes P.G. Flemming (Abhandlungen der königlichen Gesellscha der Wissenschaen zu Göttingen. Philologisch-historische Klasse. NF 15; Berlin, 1917), pp. 138–41. 52. Flemming, Akten, pp. 130–31, The Second Synod of Ephesus, tr. Samuel G.F. Perry (Dartford, 1881), p. 322. 53. Flemming, Akten, pp. 132–39 and Perry, Second Synod, pp. 339–43. 54. eodoret, Letter to the Patrician Anatolius, ed. and tr. Yvan Azéma (SC 98; Paris, 1965), pp. 182–91; Letter to the Prefect Eutre, ed. and tr. Yvan Azéma (SC 98; Paris, 1965), pp. 188–91.

C 10

THE HOME SYNOD OF 448 e previous episode saw the emperor’s determination to preserve the Union severely challenged from an unexpected quarter. e challenge came from the Antiochenes we call Nestorians because they refused to condemn Nestorius as John had done. Instead, they proclaimed that Cyril had, by signing the Union, abandoned his opposition and had joined them in teaching two natures of Christ aer the union. Desperate to refute their claim, Cyril maintained that what he meant, and what John of Antioch, he assumed, meant when they signed the Union was rather that Christ indeed had two natures, but only ‘before the Incarnation/ union’. Aer it one could speak only of ‘one incarnate nature’. e battle was now focused on the Union. What did it commit one to? e tensions turned to hostility. When the Emperor would not allow Cyril for the Cyrillians and John for the Antiochenes to abandon the Union, proxies for the Antiochenes were found for Cyril and his sympathizers to attack and the Antiochenes to defend in Diodore and eodore of Mopsuestia. Hostilities did not cease, rather grew more virulent, aer Cyril’s death in 444. By 448 the emperor concluded that something really had to be done. Having le the bishops to reach agreement on a shared statement of faith at Ephesus, and finding that that approach proved disastrous, he turned to the only other possible way to address the situation: one side would have to be suppressed and the other’s position established and enforced. How that was to be achieved was not at first clear, but by 448 a promising plan had been developed to establish the Antiochene side, and suppress the Cyrillian. At its heart, as we shall see, was a brilliant new strategy, the strategy we call claiming the mantle of Cyril, first practiced at a Home Synod of Constantinope meeting in 448, to which we now turn. Claiming the mantle of Cyril was a brilliant strategy, but it had to be put into effect by clever managing of the customary machinery for examining suspected heretics. Accordingly, a petition was submitted to Flavian, Archbishop of Constantinople, by a lawyer turned bishop, Eusebius of Dorylaeum, accusing Eutyches – an elderly monk of Constantinople who was well known to be devoted to Cyril, who had, in fact, at one time been sent a

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written appeal for support by Cyril himself1 – of heresy. Eusebius’ petition was received by Flavian, who brought it before a Home Synod of Constantinople over which he presided. Following legal custom, the petition was read, Eutyches was summoned to appear and defend himself against it, was cross-examined, and found himself condemned and deposed. (We have the relevant minutes of this session of the synod, since they were read at Ephesus II in 449 and were contained in its minutes, which in turn were cited at Chalcedon and contained in its minutes.2) is, essentially Eutyches’ trial for heresy, was to alter significantly the Nestorian Controversy in new and startling ways.

S  T e Home Synod of 448 was no ordinary synod. It enjoys a high reputation with Chalcedonian churches, but that is not the point. It is generally thought to have defended christological orthodoxy by condemning, in the person of Eutyches, the new heresy of Monophysitism, sometimes calling it Eutychianism, but that as it turns out was simply not what happened.3 Eutyches was relegated to, and has remained among, the classic heretics, but he does not belong there. Flavian is revered for having overseen in a straightforward way this orthodox synod’s condemnation of Monophysitism, but he in fact was far from straightforward. Our analysis of the Home Synod takes account for the first time of long-neglected evidence, and turns the traditional narrative on its head.4 As will be seen, we have every reason to be suspicious of the seemingly anodyne synod scholarship has taken the Home Synod for. In the first place, Eutyches’ trial was staged by Flavian, almost certainly in collaboration with the Emperor. at the trial was staged, its outcome predetermined, and Flavian clearly party to the staging, was convincingly 1. Eutyches had been asked by Cyril in 432 or 433 to support his cause in Constantinople: ACO I, IV, pp. 222–24. 2. e intermingling of three different sets of minutes makes for difficult reading. A helpful guide, identifying the sections of Session I of Chalcedon that contain the minutes of the Home Synod may be found in ACC I, pp. 26–27. 3. We leave to one side the entirely fanciful interpretation of Schwartz according to which Dioscorus and Eutyches had hatched a plan: Flavian would intentionally be provoked into condemning Eutyches so that Dioscorus would have an excuse to call for a council to condemn Flavian. E. Schwartz, Der Prozess des Eutyches (Sitzungsberichte der Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaen, Philosophisch-Historische Alteilung 5; München, 1929), pp. 1–52. 4. George A. Bevan and Patrick T.R. Gray, ‘e Trial of Eutyches: a New Interpretation’, BZ 101 (2008), pp. 617–57.

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established at a later hearing held preparatory to Ephesus II.5 Hearings also heard evidence that the official minutes had been doctored in a number of ways, so that there were two versions of the minutes, representing contradictory accounts of what was said and done on several crucial points.6 e evidence unearthed by these hearings offers a useful corrective to the official minutes, which of course were the voice of Flavian, whose offices would have prepared them. In the second place, there is more evidence concerning Flavian. If he wanted someone in place to suppress new-formulae Cyrillians and mandate Antiochene orthodoxy, eodosius was fortunate to have this new archbishop. Whoever sat on the archepiscopal throne of Constantinople was necessarily closely connected with the court, and in an ideal position to formulate and influence ecclesiastical policy. More importantly, Flavian, it turns out, was an accomplished Antiochene disguised as a Cyrillian. We have the crucial evidence from Nestorius himself, the evidence we saw in chapter 7. It shows that Nestorius’ policy was to urge likeminded persons to present a benign image to their Cyrillian critics by appearing to condemn him. In the Liber Heracleides he, fortuitously for us, actually describes none other than Flavian as a favoured ally, and tellingly maintains, as we have observed, that Flavian was a practitioner of the strategy he, Nestorius, recommended all of his sympathizers should practice.7 We know, then, just to hammer home the point, that Flavian was someone who intentionally gave the appearance of being one with Cyrillians by joining in the condemnation of Nestorius, but secretly used that appearance of Cyrillian orthodoxy as cover for carrying on the Antiochene enterprise. In this he was at one with John of Antioch and others. When eodosius decided that his best chance at strengthening the Union was to favour the Antiochene side and suppress the Cyrillians, he naturally turned to Flavian, the right man for the job. Other ideal instruments were ready to hand. ere was the Home Synod of Constantinople itself, the irregular meeting in the capital of representatives of the church throughout the empire that functioned as a kind of stand-in for a full ecumenical council when an issue involved the church at large. ere was Eusebius of Dorylaeum, the hired-gun lawyer turned bishop who had proven his skill as a prosecutor against Nestorius. ere was, in a cameo appearance, and clearly representing the emperor, the 5. Eutyches’ petition to this effect: ACO II, I, 834, pp. 177–78. Evidence supporting his case: 837–47, pp. 178–79. 6. ese facts were confirmed under oath by high officials, the silentiary Magnus and the tribune Macedonius, at a hearing in 449: ACO II, I, 838, p. 178, and 846, pp. 178–79. 7. Nestorius, Second Apology, tr. Driver and Hodgson, p. 370. See the analysis in chapter 5.

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experienced, theologically literate, and intellectually agile patrician Florentius. All were prepared to guarantee Eutyches’ condemnation. And there was, as the token radical Cyrillian intended to be the victim of the piece and a salutary example for others, the monk of Constantinople, Eutyches. He was very old, probably too far-sighted in old age to be helped by an aide-memoire, and subject by his own admission to becoming muddled and getting caught in verbal errors under cross-examination.8 All would play their parts.

P L  C O When the session opened, Eusebius immediately presented his petition. In it he began by describing himself as the ideal orthodox, untainted by heresy, and defender of Nicaea, Ephesus, and ‘the beliefs and definitions of the blessed Cyril then bishop of the great city of Alexandria’ and other fathers.9 It is an ideal pedigree for someone wanting to present himself as a loyal Cyrillian, at least before the new formulae appeared on the scene. He then began building his case, as any Cyrillian would be expected to do, by asking for some of Cyril’s letters to be read. (Note well. ese letters would be at the heart of all subsequent stages of the controversy; their introduction at the Home Synod marked the opening of an epoch). e first letter to which he drew their attention was the Second Letter to Nestorius, saying that he was asking that it be read ‘in order to make clear to all that we think and believe in accordance with the teaching contained in this letter’, again what you would expect a Cyrillian to say.10 The Second Letter to Nestorius was agreed, aer all, to be the quintessential statement of Cyrillian orthodoxy. Secondly, he reminded the bishops that there was ‘a second letter of Cyril’, Laetentur Coeli, and asked that it be read ‘so that the doctrines of the church may be clear to all.’11 Again, the sense of Cyril’s doctrinal authority was played up, in apparently Cyrillian fashion. (Notice, 8. Inability to read suggesting the farsightedness of presbyopia: ACO II, I, 397, p. 128, and 499–500, p. 141. Seemingly contrary evidence: ACO II, I, 422, p. 131. Reporting that he ‘read’ a letter could easily mean he had the letter read on his behalf. 9. ACO II, I, 225 and 230, pp. 100–101, tr. ACC I, pp. 169–70. 10. Cyril, Second Letter to Nestorius, ACO II, I, 238, pp. 103–104, tr. ACC I, pp. 172– 73. 11. Laetentur Coeli = Cyril, Letter to John of Antioch, ACO II, I, 238, p. 103, tr. ACC I, pp. 178–83. It is perhaps revealing that he says the letter was ‘addressed to the holy synod in the Orient’, when it was actually addressed simply to John of Antioch. As we have observed, gaining compliance from the individual Antiochene bishops who were supposedly members of the ‘synod in the Orient’ was a long-drawn-out and oen impotent business. Casting the Union as an agreement between councils of Alexandria and Antioch

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though, that treating the Union statement contained in the letter as Cyril’s own teaching was something Cyril himself had quite specifically rejected; in his view, we should recall, it was the Antiochenes’ apology, and its words were John of Antioch’s, not his.12) Aer the reading of the letters, Eusebius described the essential response he wanted, and again he sounded like a Cyrillian: ‘I have come to your holy synod and ask your holiness also to assent to what has been read, so that all may know that whoever rejects these statements of faith is the enemy of the orthodox church and has no part in the priestly assembly.’13 So far, a Cyrillian might have listened and nodded his head at virtually everything Eusebius said, and at what had been read, but he might have wondered: why was this seemingly loyal Cyrillian charging Eutyches, well known to have been a loyal Cyrillian for many years, with heresy, and specifically with not believing what Cyril believed? It made no apparent sense. It was le to Flavian to make the key point that would make the whole strategy being deployed clear, Eusebius having set the stage. Right aer Cyril’s letters were read with all reverence, he began by repeating Eusebius’ point: ‘e letters that have been read of our father Cyril … give an accurate interpretation of the thought of the holy fathers who assembled in their time at Nicaea …’14 No Cyrillian would have disagreed. But then he went on. ese letters, he said, asserted of Christ that he was ‘consubstantial with the Father in respect of the Godhead and consubstantial with his mother in respect of the manhood. For we confess that Christ is from two natures after the incarnation, as we confess in one hypostasis and one person one Christ, one Son, one Lord.’15 e references are, of course, to a notable subordinate clause in the Second Letter to Nestorius, and to the closing sentence of the Union, the two loci in Cyril in which he, more or less openly, asserts or subscribes to the persistence of two natures into the Incarnation, over against the position of the new-formulae letters. Flavian, or whoever advised him on these matters, had realized that one could quote Cyril as an authority for Antiochene christology! It is crucial to grasp that point. Scholarship has, virtually universally, missed the real point of Flavian’s confession. Instead, it has taken the was in itself an aggrandizement of that document aimed at giving it greater authority and prestige. 12. e key doctrinal section of the letter was, it should be remembered, not composed by Cyril; it was an Antiochene creation. Cyril insisted it was John’s words, not his, and interpreted his subscription to it as his not totally satisfied acceptance of John’s clumsily worded defence of his faith. 13. ACO II, I, 270, p. 113. 14. ACO II, I, 271, pp. 113–14, tr. ACC I, p. 186. 15. ACO II, I, 271, p. 114, tr. ACC I, pp. 186–87.

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remarkable things about Flavian’s speech to be, first, his use of ‘out of two natures’ rather than ‘in two natures’, as if this showed a genuine accommodation on his part to Cyril’s usage, and second, his use of the word ‘hypostasis’, as if it represented an advance in conceptualizing christology, rather than what it really was, the adoption of a vague but strongsounding word to assert the real unity of Christ, something neither side could argue against. Cyril did indeed say ‘out of two natures’ rather than ‘in two natures’, and he did occasionally speak of Christ’s oneness in terms of hypostasis, but what he identified as his distinctive belief, the belief distinguishing him from Nestorians, and what his most fervent followers took to be the authoritative key to Cyrillian orthodoxy established by Cyril himself, was that Christ was out of two natures only before the incarnation not aer. erefore – the point cannot be insisted upon too strongly – the really remarkable thing about what Flavian said is his insistence that Cyril himself taught a Christ out of two natures after the incarnation, in direct contradiction of what he wrote in the new-formulae letters. e object is immediately obvious. To repeat the point: rather than working against Cyril, Flavian had realized one could use Cyril against Cyril. If Cyril could be shown to have taught two natures after the Incarnation, that could be used to neutralize the new-formulae Cyrillians’ insistence on a Christ out of two natures only before the Incarnation. It was true that Cyril spoke specifically of two natures aer the Incarnation – in the two letters Eusebius had asked to have read, but nowhere else. e necessary evidence for this had already been introduced by Eusebius, indeed had been introduced, artfully, as and when it was, for exactly this reason: he had begun by insisting on the reading of those two particular letters, and had insisted that they be recognized as embodying authoritative Cyrillian orthodoxy. e Second Letter to Nestorius included a passage critical for the case being made.16 e crucial words had been there all along, but only now had someone recognized their utility to the Antiochene cause: ‘ough the natures joined together to form a real unity are different, it is one Christ and Son coming from them, not implying that the difference between the natures was abolished through their union [so that] Godhead and manhood have given us the one Lord, Christ and Son by their mysterious and inexpressible unification.’17 If the difference between the natures was not abolished through their union in the incarnation, then Cyril himself taught that there were two natures after the incarnation. e 16. A reminder: the letter was written at a time when Cyril quite happily and insouciantly spoke of two natures in various ways to indicate the divine-human duality in Christ he always recognized. 17. Cyril, Second Letter to Nestorius 3, Wickham, pp. 6–7.

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Union statement embedded in Laetentur coeli could be used to the same effect: if Cyril admitted that ‘theologians treat some as shared because they refer to one person, some they refer separately to two natures, traditionally teaching the application of the divine terms to Christ’s Godhead, the lowly to his manhood’, he was admitting that each of those natures existed in the incarnate Christ (aer the incarnation) who uttered these very different sayings, not before the incarnation, but aer it.18 In short, Flavian seized, not on the admission that Christ had two natures, never in itself an issue for Cyril, but on the two places in two of his most authoritative letters where he could be quoted as saying that Christ had two natures after the incarnation. at kind of Christ posed no problem for Antiochenes. Cyrillians under the spell of the new formulae, though, it might stop in their tracks: were they not bound to accept these texts, at least one of which wore the halo of Ephesus I, as ruling out acceptance of the contradictory new formulae contained in letters of no particular authority and, if not abrogated by their author, had notably been le in limbo by him? We can see the cleverness of Flavian’s strategy. Cyrillians were first invited to sympathize with Eusebius, posing as a Cyrillian like themselves. ey were invited to repeat with him their familiar Cyrillian refrain: the faith of the fathers was the faith of Nicaea as expounded by Ephesus I, that is, by Cyril’s Second Letter to Nestorius. Cast as the opponent of this orthodoxy, Eutyches naturally fell under suspicion. en they heard the two letters, both ostensibly written by Cyril, one of which had been approved for its orthodoxy by Ephesus itself, and of course declared their loyalty to them. So far a Cyrillian, at least one who did not know Eutyches, would have been carried along quite merrily on a tide of Cyrillian enthusiasm. Only then would the sting be felt: they had just declared their complete agreement with two letters of Cyril that said there were two natures aer the incarnation; they had, moreover, agreed that anyone who did not believe as these letters said, was a heretic! Flavian and Eusebius had managed to deploy one Cyril against another, the early tolerant and casual Cyril of ‘two natures aer the union’ against the Cyril of ‘out of two natures before the union’ and ‘one incarnate nature of the Word of God’. Eusebius then summarizes this part of the trial: it is his opinion that these two letters ‘give an accurate interpretation of the thought of the holy fathers … [of] Nicaea’, and confirm that Christ was consubstantial with both the Father and the Virgin Mary, so that ‘we [soi-disant Cyrillians] 18. Cyril, Letter to John of Antioch 5, Wickham, p. 222. One needed, of course, to use a little sleight of hand, and let it be assumed, falsely, that Cyril had authored the Union statement, and that these were therefore ipsissima verba.

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confess that Christ is from two natures aer the incarnation, as we confess in one hypostasis and person one Christ …’ He then calls upon the bishops to go on record as to their beliefs.19 is they do, in the process dutifully filling out the picture of ‘Cyrillian’ orthodoxy. Cyril’s statements cannot be challenged, some say; all of his letters are ‘true and full of piety’; ‘these doctrines are apostolic, orthodox and pious’; to hold a contrary belief is to deserve excommunication; they are ‘definitions’; to oppose two natures is to introduce novelty (the Cyrillians’ favourite charge turned against them!); one would have to be ‘carried away by satanic madness’ to say the contrary; etc.20 Revealingly, one bishop spoke of these letters as ‘canonical texts issued by the blessed Cyril’.21 e two letters, supported by the rhetoric of one faction, were thus rapidly being set apart as uniquely ‘synodical’ and ‘canonical’, a status they would need if their authority was, as planned, to trump that of so many other writings of Cyril. Perhaps equally revealingly, one bishop claimed that Cyril was ‘followed by the primate of the Orient, the most God-beloved John bishop of Antioch …’22 In this way a key text for the Antiochene cause, the Union, originally composed by John of Antioch or someone in his circle as their apology and only hesitatingly ‘approved’ by Cyril despite its noted weaknesses, was being turned into an authoritative statement assumed to have been composed by Cyril and acquiesced in by John, the reverse of what actually happened. ough the logic employed by the Flavian strategy was rhetorically compelling, it had weaknesses as a weapon to tame new-formulae Cyrillians, as its perpetrators obviously recognized. ey knew their strategy relied on just two of Cyril’s letters, and attempted to force a choice for these letters against the new-formulae letters, resting their case on the patent contradiction between the texts on each side. ey knew, too, that theirs was an age widely convinced, or in the process of being convinced, that a recognized father – and Cyril had, for many, become a recognized father in his own lifetime – simply could not have contradicted himself. Loyal Cyrillians might just refuse to choose one Cyril over another; they were likely simply to deny that there was any real contradiction. Flavian et al. needed additional ways of strengthening their case if they were to have any real chance of success.

19. ACO II, I, 271, pp. 113–14, tr. ACC I, pp. 186–87. 20. ACO II, I, 301–302, 307–308, 330–31, 339–40, 342–46, 348–51, pp. 117–23, tr. ACC I, pp. 190–98. 21. ACO II, I, 349, p. 122, tr. ACC I, p. 197. 22. ACO II, I, 342, p. 121, tr. ACC I, p. 196.

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W E S F What is important about Eutyches for our purposes has been dealt with: that he symbolized someone who stood absolutely for new-formulae Cyrillianism. When it came to the final crunch Eutyches was absolutely clear and unconfused on one point, and it shows us exactly where he stood. e following climactic interchange between himself and his prosecutors, an interchange which was followed immediately by his excommunication and deposition, is unequivocal: Eutyches the presbyter said: ‘I have read in the blessed Cyril, in the holy fathers and in Saint Athanasius that they said “from two natures” before the union, but aer the union and the incarnation they no longer affirmed two natures but one.’ e most magnificent and glorious former prefect, former consul and patrician Florentius said: ‘Do you acknowledge two natures aer the union? Speak! If you do not, you will be deposed.’ Eutyches the presbyter said: ‘Have the writings of Saint Athanasius read. en you will discover that he says nothing of the kind.’ e most God-beloved Bishop Basil said: ‘If you do not affirm two natures aer the incarnation, you imply mixture and confusion.’ e most magnificent and glorious Florentius said: ‘He who does not say “from two natures” and “two natures” is not orthodox in his beliefs.’23

In short, when all was said and done, when he had given away everything he could, Eutyches embraced his own anathematization and deposition before he would acknowledge ‘two natures aer the union’. at was for him non-negotiable. e same point is proven by his response to the demand, during the same interchange, that he anathematize ‘everything contrary to the doctrines that have been read’.24 e context shows that ‘the documents that [had] been read’ affirmed two natures aer the incarnation. He refuses to anathematize everything contrary to the documents for one simple reason: ‘If I anathematize, woe is me, because I anathematize my fathers’, that is, the Cyril of the new formulae and, as he supposed, the Athanasius of ‘one incarnate nature’.25 He absolutely insisted with the Cyril of the new formulae, that is, that Christ was out of two natures only before the union.

23. ACO II, I, 542, p. 144, tr. ACC I, p. 224. 24. More probably what he actually refused to do was to anathematize ‘those who do not say [two natures aer the union]’, i.e. he refused to anathematize persons rather than texts. is correction was urged in a later hearing on the minutes: ACO II, I, 534, p. 143. 25. ACO II, I, 534–35, pp. 143–44, tr. ACC I, p. 223.

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O S A strategy of obfuscation vis-à-vis Cyril’s authorship of ‘out of two natures before the union’ was attempted, for one thing. To this end Eutyches was denied any opportunity of explaining himself at his trial, since part of any explanation would sooner or later have revealed his loyalty to Cyril and pointed to the latter’s authorship of the letters that contained the new formulae. us, when he attempted to have a prepared statement read (by someone else, presumably because he himself was far-sighted) when he was visited in his monastery by delegations from the Home Synod, or by a representative he sent to the Synod, or at the Synod itself, he was time aer time denied the opportunity. When he was cross-examined by his prosecutors Eusebius and, at the end, Florentius, they skillfully steered him away from claiming that he was following Cyril in those letters, so skillfully, in fact, that you would never know from the minutes that Cyril ever used the vilified ‘out of two natures before the union’ were it not for Eutyches’ last-ditch reference to it in the climactic interchange quoted above: ‘I have read in the blessed Cyril and in Saint Athanasius that they said “from two natures before the union” …’26 By then, though, the momentum of the rhetoric against Eutyches was overwhelming, and anything he said was likely to be dismissed as incoherent, at least at the time. Two ancillary strategies that claimed to demonstrate the illogicality of Eutyches’ position were also employed. e first sought to demonstrate on additional grounds that two natures aer the union were logically implied by what Cyril subscribed to in the Union agreement, not one; the second sought to demonstrate that the terrible implication of saying one nature aer the union was Monophysitism. e first strategy referred implicitly to ‘Cyril’s’ words in the Union agreement vis-à-vis Christ’s double consubstantiality: ‘the same [is] consubstantial with the Father in respect of the Godhead and consubstantial with us in respect of the manhood.’27 at implied two natures. Since Cyril always believed in two natures, and the words ‘nature’ and ‘substance’ were commonly equated, it seems likely that he had no problem with double consubstantiality when he signed the Union, but of course at that time he was not yet fully aware how words he had agreed to could be turned against him. At any rate, aer those words were read, Flavian, claiming to sum up what the two letters taught, 26. ACO II, I, 542, p. 144, tr. ACC I, p. 224. I have modified the translation at one important point. e translators chose to identify what Eutyches claimed Cyril and Athanasius said as ‘from two natures’. Everything we have seen indicates that, actually, he claimed they said ‘from two natures before the union’, and I have moved the closing quotation-mark accordingly. 27. ACO II, I, 246, p. 109.

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insisted there was a necessary connection between double consubstantiality and ‘two natures aer the union’, that you could not have one without the other. e letters taught, he said, a Christ ‘consubstantial with the Father in respect of the Godhead and consubstantial with his mother in respect of the manhood, for we confess that Christ is from two natures aer the incarnation …’28 It was the first of several iterations of the argument, the most dramatic of which involved the patrician Florentius in his star turn, for it elicited from Eutyches the fatal refusal that clinched his condemnation: e most magnificent and glorious patrician Florentius said: ‘Do you say, or not, that our Lord who is from the Virgin is consubstantial [with us] and from two natures aer the incarnation?’ Eutyches the presbyter said: ‘I acknowledge that our Lord came into being from two natures before the union; but aer the union I acknowledge one nature.’29

e second logical strategy, articulated by Basil of Seleucia, took up the central aporetic argument against affirming only one nature aer the union. It will be remembered that, like all arguments of this type, it attacked the doctrine of an opponent by spelling out its supposed ludicrous and blasphemous implications: ‘If you do not affirm two natures aer the incarnation you imply mixture and confusion.’30 Here at last the key ideas associated with the heresiological tradition’s listing for Monophysitism appear – as a supposed implication, nothing more, of what Eutyches believed. Eutyches, however, denied believing any such thing, and it is to be regretted that for so long his name was identified with that heresy, not to mention the misleading caricaturing of later anti-Chalcedonians as Monophysites like him. Perhaps the strategy most likely to sway the synod in the short term, presuming that it needed persuading and was not totally committed ahead of time, was their leaders’ unrelenting determination to make of Eutyches, as the representative of new-formulae Cyrillianism, the terrible and cautionary example of what would happen to those who persisted in belonging to his way of thinking. e prosecution had chosen their victim well. As Eutyches himself feared, they were easily able to confuse him, trap him with rhetorical arguments, and generally turn him into a buffoon; at least 28. ACO II, I, 271, p. 114, tr. ACC I, p. 186. I have taken the liberty of differing with the translators over punctuation to emphasize the connection. As I see it, Flavian recapitulates what Cyril said purely and simply to point the obvious conclusion: the double consubstantiality everyone confessed along with Cyril, unmistakably a reality ‘aer the incarnation’, likewise entailed two natures aer the incarnation. 29. ACO II, I, 526–27, p. 143, tr. ACC I, p. 222. 30. ACO II, I, 545, p. 144, tr. ACC I, p. 224.

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that was what happened according to the official minutes. is was, however, to be no innocent clown, but a man who brought down condemnation on his head by his foolish beliefs. e goal, obviously, was to deter other bishops from joining him. To do so would, the implication was, bring the same condemnation down on their heads. e presence of Florentius, representing the court, made it clear, too, that the decisions of this synod had imperial backing. To join Eutyches would be to risk losing one’s clerical status at the very least. ere had never been any real doubt that Eutyches would be condemned. Led by Flavian, the synod declared him ‘deprived of all sacerdotal rank, of communion with us, and of the headship of a monastery.’31 Flavian’s strategy had triumphed in the short term, aided and abetted by the emperor and his agents. Winning the day at a pre-planned synod was not the same thing as winning the day with the church at large, however, once word got out of what had happened to Eutyches. It was a moot point whether Cyril’s vast community, who perhaps would remember what their opponents hoped they had forgotten – that Cyril really had said ‘two natures before the Incarnation’ and ‘one incarnate nature’, albeit at only one juncture and only in a few letters –, could be convinced so easily to abandon those formulae by the argument that the very same Cyril had seemed to recognize ‘two natures aer the Incarnation’. Would they accept the evidence of only two letters? Would it matter to them that those letters could be privileged with ‘synodical’ status? Many of the bishops would not likely admit even that Cyril had le conflicting texts, given his exalted status as the standard of orthodoxy. Could a father contradict himself? Whatever else happened at the Home Synod, something momentous had happened: the emergence in its fullest form of the strategy of claiming the mantle of Cyril. Aer decades of adopting and adapting protective-colouration strategies in order to pass themselves off as in agreement with Cyril, Antiochenes had boldly begun to claim – the Nestorians had said this before, but they had done so mischievously; John of Antioch had incautiously hinted at something of the sort, but had been slapped down – that Cyril could be proven to agree with them, not the reverse. e controversy was thereby transformed: from now on, it would be a controversy between the same rival factions, but they were rival factions newly configured, each of which began with the assumption of Cyril’s exemplary orthodoxy, each of which claimed the mantle of Cyril. What now needed to be faced was the reaction of the new-formulae Cyrillians to the show trial that had been put on for their benefit. 31. ACO II, I, 551, p. 145, tr. ACC I, p. 225.

C 11

THE SECOND COUNCIL OF EPHESUS e episode of the Home Synod of 448 saw the emergence of a powerful strategy for survival on the part of the Antiochenes, a strategy aimed at suppressing the attacks on them by the many who, already uneasy about two-natures talk, had embraced Cyril’s new formulae as the authentic interpretation of his teaching. In the form of the staged trial of Eutyches, a champion of the new formulae, they communicated a warning to those who agreed with him that they faced condemnation for being betrayers of Cyril. e case was made on the basis of two letters of Cyril it styled ‘synodical’, in each of which, it could be argued, Cyril asserted two natures aer the union. Cyril’s authority could be deployed against himself. e Nestorians, on this view, were thus essentially correct: Cyril did, as these letters proved, agree with the Antiochenes. ose who espoused the newformulae Cyril were, however, unlikely to accept that argument, however powerful and however adroitly argued, when they had letters in which he clearly enunciated new-formulae orthodoxy. e Home Synod, contrary to what its sponsors intended, actually divided the church more deeply, and threatened the Empire. It probably had no real chance of succeeding in its strategy, no matter how clever, of seeming to submit to the primacy of Cyril’s orthodoxy while interpreting it in terms of a ‘synodical’ and Antiochene-friendly Cyril that excluded the interpretation of his orthodoxy Cyril himself at at least one crucial point had enunciated. Success in this bold venture would have required making a case so convincing that those who all along had been Cyrillians would be cowed into silence over the new formulae, on the one hand, and on the other find themselves apparently in agreement with the Antiochenes. at would, as planned, have revived and strengthened the Union of 433. However, intelligent Cyrillians had had some fieen years to learn to be suspicious of Antiochene claims that they agreed with Cyril. Were they likely now to accept that, contrary to everything they knew, he agreed with them? ey had well-founded suspicions, in fact, that at least some Antiochene bishops – Ibas of Edessa being one of the chief among them – were ongoing Nestorians, and skirmishes between these bishops and Cyril-sympathetic monks and laity had been growing in intensity and frequency. One reason why Cyril himself had set out his new formulae

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(‘out of two natures before the incarnation’, ‘one incarnate nature aer it’) in the period following the signing of the Union was to rule out the Nestorians’ patent attempt to co-opt him for their cause. His followers had adopted these formulae, not of course as creedal statements – there were to be no new creeds –, but as guides to a genuinely Cyrillian understanding of orthodoxy, clarifying what could and could not be said if one was to remain orthodox. At the climax of his trial Eutyches, a typical newformulae Cyrillian, revealed the non-negotiability of what a new-formulae understanding dictated: even at the expense of guaranteeing his own condemnation, he refused to say ‘two natures aer the union’, standing by the positive ‘Athanasian’ formula ‘one nature aer the union’. Furthermore, he refused to anathematize ‘those who do not say [two natures aer the union]’, being convinced that to do so would mean anathematizing Athanasius and Cyril.1 Cyrillians of his disposition were thus never likely to be impressed by Flavian’ and Eusebius’ claim that it was rather ‘two natures aer the union’ that really represented the authoritative teaching of Cyril. It did not take long for the simmering anger of new-formulae Cyrillians to become boiling rage against the Home Synod, what it stood for, and those who had directed it. So fiercely and determinedly did the newformulae Cyrillians protest that the emperor, desperate to hold the empire and the church together, could not ignore them. Once again something had to be done.

T’ V- What eodosius did was to radically reverse his ecclesiastical policy in what should be seen as one of the most startling, decisive, and bold voltesface of Christian history: he called a full ecumenical council to undo what the Home Synod had done, rehabilitate Eutyches, and establish the latter’s Cyrillian faith as official orthodoxy.2 It has oen been thought that this reversal confirmed eodosius’ reputation for being a weak and indecisive ruler, that it revealed a man more influenced by strong persons around 1. Refusal to say ‘two natures aer the union’: ACO II, I, 527, p. 143, tr. ACC I, p. 222; refusal to condemn those who do not say it: ACO II, I, 788, pp. 172–73, tr. ACC I, p. 260. We accept Constantine’s correction of 534, p. 143, which changes the sense on a crucial point. What Eutyches refused to do was to condemn persons (Cyril and Athanasius would be the persons he has in mind) not, as the official minutes had it, statements. 2. at eodosius boldly reversed his policy at this point is argued by myself and George Bevan: Bevan and Gray, ‘e Trial of Eutyches’. Bevan treated imperial policy on this issue more fully in his doctoral thesis: Bevan, The Case of Nestorius.

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him, especially women, than by considerations of policy when it came to church affairs, but this is by no means fair. Dealing with the church and its tendency to break apart into schisms was a profoundly difficult task. No emperor found it easy, yet during his long reign eodosius managed to hold both church and state together, something that cannot be said of his more-admired successor, Marcian. Granted, eodosius had been naive in supposing that the bishops could be allowed to settle the church’s affairs without imperial direction at Ephesus I, but bringing, by a combination of diplomacy and threat, the resultant warring parties to the point of agreeing on a joint statement in 433 was no mean achievement. It is true that eodosius had not, apparently, foreseen the spoiler role the Nestorians would play in response to that agreement, but then, neither had anyone else so far as we can tell. Cyril’s reaction to the Nestorian claims – the creation of new formulae to explain what he actually meant by two natures – was another challenging development, for insistence on their adoption had the potential to divide the church again. It is hard to imagine how any emperor could have seen these developments coming, though. eodosius is owed some credit for his effective averting of that danger, once it revealed itself, as also of the danger of a confrontation over the Antiochene ‘fathers’. Even if he only barely succeeded in suppressing the ever-pugnacious parties, he did succeed in doing so while Cyril lived. But things went on threatening to fall apart, especially aer Cyril’s death. It was neither weak nor indecisive of eodosius to conclude, looking at the situation from Constantinople, and acting almost certainly on the advice of his natural ‘minister for church affairs’, Flavian, that the strategy the latter presumably proposed – using the Home Synod to demonstrate that the Union’s two-natures christology actually represented Cyrillian orthodoxy – had a reasonable chance of shoring up the fragile peace. at, had the imperial city been Alexandria, and had Dioscorus been his minister for church affairs, he would certainly have seen things differently is beside the point. e point is that, faced with intractable problems visà-vis the church, what eodosius, in alliance with Flavian and the Antiochene bishops, attempted with the trial of Eutyches was intelligent and cogent. One could even call it decisive. Likewise, when the reaction against that strategy showed that it was doomed, and the danger of schism loomed large, it was neither weak nor indecisive, but intelligent and decisive of eodosius to change course as drastically and swily as possible to avert a deeper crisis. (at he recognized the need to reverse his policy did not of course mean that he was prepared to admit publically he had once mistakenly backed the Flavian cause he now wanted condemned. Emperors were not required to admit to having made mistakes! He could and did

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in the new situation claim never to have conspired with Flavian and his allies against Eutyches, even, in his letter to the opening session of Ephesus II, fabricating a convenient story about having written to Flavian over and over again urging him to ‘drop the inquiry [concerning Eutyches]’!3) More importantly, he immediately set the wheels in motion to put his new policy into effect before the aroused Cyrillians, particularly of Egypt, insisted on complete adoption of the most radically Cyrillian interpretive language – the new formulae and the anathemas – by the entire church, including the Antiochenes, and effectively forced them into schism. us, a scant three months aer the closing of the Home Synod, we find eodosius issuing sacra convoking a new council, the Second Council of Ephesus. Pejoratively styled a ‘latrocinium’ by a pope, Leo, who had no understanding of the issues at stake, and usually seen through the far from objective eyes of bishops at Chalcedon desperate to join the winning side under a new emperor, and to construe what they had done at Ephesus II under eodosius, not as their free act for which they had to take responsibility, but as something forced upon them by a ‘brutal’ Dioscorus, Ephesus II has looked to parti pris historians like an unruly and illegal assembly unworthy of being taken seriously. On the contrary, to read its records disentangled from their situation in the hostile acts of Chalcedon is to recognize that it was in fact a remarkably carefully planned and managed council, so much so that, in formal terms, it can rightly be said to be the single most convincingly ecumenical council of the patristic age! If Ephesus II from the start had no other possible outcome than the condemnation of what we may call the ‘Flavian’ soi-disant Cyrillianism of the Home Synod, and the enshrining of new-formulae Cyrillianism – as was plainly the case – still, it did so in proper form: it was properly called; it responded to petitions properly submitted to, and properly mediated to the council by, the emperor; there were properly constituted preliminary hearings setting things in order; proper minutes were kept; and votes were properly taken and recorded; it was assisted by the proper civil and military authorities.

S  A e four months between the issuing of sacra and the opening of the council itself, that is, between March 30 and August 8 of 449, saw confusion in the church as the startling news spread that there was to be – so 3. ACO II, I, 51, p. 73, tr. ACC I, p. 139.

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soon! – a new council. Any bishop interested in staying on his throne would have wanted more clarity as to the emperor’s intentions, yet in the spring of 449 such a bishop could have read the sacra and still been none the wiser. ere was scrambling, whether ideological or pragmatic, as various church leaders, feeling the ground shi confusingly under their feet, tried to find a new footing. One thing was clear: this council was about the reaction against the Home Synod, and that reaction was real and powerful. ‘At the present time,’ said the sacra, ‘as regards the defence of the catholic and apostolic teaching of our orthodox faith, a dispute has suddenly arisen which, seducing people with a variety of opinions, disturbs and confuses, as is natural, the perception and souls of men.’ 4 Who represented orthodoxy, though, and who were the seducers? Some of the bishops who had so recently played along with imperial policy in the prosecution of Eutyches concluded, not implausibly, that the emperor’s agenda had not changed, just the means used to prosecute it: they thought the impending council must be meant to strengthen further the Flavian party against the negative reactions of Eutyches’ supporters. So, two weeks aer the issuing of sacra, even that well-informed lawyer and cleric, Eusebius of Dorylaeum, could appeal to those present at an April 13 preliminary hearing: ‘[L]eave this matter [of what is contained in the document Eutyches tried to produce at the seventh session of his trial to set out his faith] to the ecumenical council which is about to take place by the decree of our Christ-loving emperors.’ He urged them to do so because, he assured everyone, the heretical nature of Eutyches’ beliefs would be proven at the council.5 Eusebius certainly hoped that would be the case. He can almost certainly be taken to represent the view of his allies, Flavian and the sympathetic bishops of the Home Synod. ey must have expected, that is, that the emperor would stay the course with their strategy. ey must have counted on him to suppress any opposition more forcefully.6 It may even have suited eodosius’ purpose to keep Flavian and his colleagues in the dark for a time while he came to a decision about how to tackle the problems that confronted him, but Eusebius’ reading of the 4. ACO II, I, 24, p. 68, tr. ACC I, p. 133. 5. Hearing of Apr. 13: Meliphthongus, Bishop of Juliopolis, apparently attempting to halt the hearing, also suggested that ‘the most crucial matters have been reserved to [the impending ecumenical council]’. Macedonius, notary and referendary, quickly made it clear the hearing had been ordered by eodosius and was to go forward: ACO II, I, 565, p. 151, and 567, p. 151, tr. ACC I, pp. 232 and 233. While it would become clear during the council that the corrections proposed by Eutyches’ agents at such preliminary hearings were accepted as accurate, the hearings themselves did not make a decision or record a vote, thus allowing people like Eusebius to continue to suppose that the Flavian version prevailed. 6. ACO II, I, 731, p. 167.

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situation proved ultimately to be incorrect.7 eodosius had come to see things differently: he now suspected, correctly, that a majority in the church more or less agreed with Cyril that a natural, even literal, reading of Nicaea as confirmed by Ephesus I represented bedrock orthodoxy, and recognized that the real enemies of reaching peaceful agreement on orthodoxy so defined were the clever Antiochene bishops behind Flavian, Eusebius, and the Home Synod who wanted to insist on a novel principle for interpretation of the creed. In a letter dated May 15 to Dioscorus, the man to whom he tellingly entrusted the management of the new council, eodosius makes this absolutely plain: It has come to the hearing of our serenity that many of the most devout archimandrites of the east together with the orthodox laity are indignant with certain bishops in some of the Oriental cities who are said to be infected with the impiety of Nestorius, and [these archimandrites and laypersons] are fighting on behalf of the orthodox faith.8

at eodosius also asked Dioscorus to permit the archimandrite Barsauma, famously a thorn in the side of Antiochene bishops and an eager combatant in the gun-battles that had been going on in the Antiochene patriarchate, to participate in the council as if he were a bishop (something no mere monk had ever done before) further shows the emperor’s determination to direct blame squarely at the coterie of élite Antiochene bishops, and in traditional Cyrillian fashion to see simple monks and laity as the natural repositories of true orthodoxy.

N- C T   L e agenda of the council thus became clear, and so did its planned modus operandi. Eutyches’ condemnation had been achieved in what was recognized to be an appropriate and legally proper way, and therefore his exoneration, if it was to trump his condemnation, was to be achieved in a legally proper way too. Reversing the official decision of a duly constituted body like the Home Synod, that is, required an equally appropriate counter-procedure. Fortunately there was to hand a well-understood legal 7. Eutyches at the Home Synod, and later Dioscorus at Chalcedon, seem to have arrived at synods in which they expected to be among the prosecutors, but at which they found themselves instead to be on trial. If Flavian and Eusebius of Dorylaeum could similarly be le in the dark as to their intended identification as the accused at Ephesus II, there would be less chance of their mounting a convincing defence, and their conviction, as desired, would be ensured. 8. ACO II, I, 1, 47, p. 71, tr. ACC I, pp. 136–37. Compare with this the letter to Barsauma, ACO II, I, I, 48, p. 71, tr. ACC I, p. 137.

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mechanism for correcting alleged errors of lower courts, that is, the receiving by a higher court of an appeal against a lower court’s decisions and, if it was considered to have merit, the reviewing and possibly reversal of the decisions of the lower court or courts involved. Distinctively, appeals were routed through the emperor, who evaluated them and forwarded them with a letter of direction to the relevant body. e obvious higher court of appeal against the decision of a Home Synod, given that it was a sort of mini-ecumenical synod, was a full ecumenical council, and that is exactly what eodosius arranged. Ephesus II’s agenda for its first session was, in fact, to deal first and foremost with three appeals from Eutyches claiming, each on different grounds, that his condemnation by the Home Synod had been a miscarriage of justice perpetrated by Flavian and Eusebius: it had falsely condemned him for not, it claimed, being orthodox.9 Success would mean restoration to the clerical and monastic ranks from which he had been deposed, whereas his prosecutors would have the sentence they had pronounced against him turned against themselves, that is, they would now be deposed from whatever rank they enjoyed.10 It is obvious at once that how Eutyches’ appeals were worded, and what evaluation and direction eodosius gave when he forwarded them to the council, would play a decisive role in what that council achieved. e council was certainly intended to address an alleged miscarriage of justice, but everything depended on how that miscarriage was construed by the petitions and the letter of direction before the council actually 9. is was in a sense the revival of an appeal Eutyches claimed had gone unheard in the turmoil surrounding his sentencing at the Home Synod: ACO II, I, 818–19, p. 175. It was not mentioned in the official minutes (551, p. 145), but was introduced as a correction of those minutes by Eutyches’ advocate, Constantine, at the hearing of April 8, of which more shortly. Eutyches himself is evidently referring to this appeal in his petition to Ephesus II in the course of describing his treatment by the Home Synod: ‘I demanded that my case be referred to your holy council … but while I was speaking, they suddenly read out the condemnation against me …’: ACO II, I, 185, p. 95, tr. ACC I, p. 163. Aer what he describes as a narrow escape from Flavian et al., Eutyches made the same appeal in writing to eodosius, i.e. he appealed for a council to deal with his case, the response to which was the convoking of Ephesus II. As he describes it, ‘I then set out what had happened in a plaint’ – the appeal Ephesus II dealt with in its first session – ‘addressed to Your Religiousness [the bishops of Ephesus II, to whom he is speaking here], and requested the … emperor to appoint you as judges of the sentence delivered …’, i.e. precisely as a court of appeal: ACO II, I, 185, p. 96, tr. ACC I, p. 164. 10. When the higher court that Ephesus II constituted came to order over Eutyches’ rehabilitation, the count Helpidius explicitly spelled these implications from civil-court practice out, noting in particular that the transference by a higher court of a lower court’s sentence to the judges who had passed that sentence unjustly was ‘in accordance with the procedure that is also followed in civil cases’: ACO II, I, 197, p. 97, tr. ACC I, pp. 165– 66.

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met. If the emphasis was placed on the faith for which Eutyches was (it would be argued, wrongly) condemned, and it could be made manifest that his was the faith of a true, traditional Cyrillian, then the righting of a legal wrong, ostensibly the task of the council, would constitute at the same time the establishment of one version of Cyrillian orthodoxy, and the dethroning of the alternative version the Home Synod had attempted to establish. Because the petitions and the imperial direction to the council were so decisive as to how it eventually unfolded and the ‘orthodoxy’ it established, it is well worth our while to give serious attention to what might be dismissed as mere preliminaries. Eutyches’ first and more important appeal claims he has been the victim of an intrigue attempting to get him to ‘hold an opinion contrary to the faith defined by the holy fathers at Nicaea’, but he has, he says, clung to that creed as it was confirmed by Ephesus I, and resisted the intriguers as being in breach of its canon against adding anything to the Creed of Nicaea.11 Called by the Home Synod to respond to a vague charge of heresy, he was not allowed to read his signed statement of faith, which he had composed in complete conformity with Nicaea and Ephesus I. Instead he was required ‘to make certain statements that went beyond the definitions of Nicaea and … Ephesus’, that is, to acknowledge ‘two natures aer the incarnation’.12 In short, Eutyches represented himself in this petition as the champion of a faith in complete conformity with Nicaea and Ephesus I, and as a man who, in accordance with Ephesus’ Canon 7, refused to add anything, including ‘two natures aer the incarnation’, to that faith. When he so refused, he was condemned and sentenced to deposition from the rank of priest and from headship of his monastery. When he appealed immediately for his case to be referred to an ecumenical council, there was no response, which denied him his legal rights. Instead, he says, Flavian single-handedly pronounced sentence against him. Narrowly having escaped mob justice, he has now appealed to eodosius for the establishment of the present council, which he is confident will see that the accusations against him are false. He is, aer all, completely devoted to Nicaea and Ephesus.13 As was normal, the appeal was lodged with the emperor, whose job it was to investigate claims and give direction. Was there sufficient evidence to make a conviction at least possible? If there was, how should the court proceed? His rulings on these questions would then, if the case was to go forward, be communicated to the higher court. We have eodosius’ 11. ACO II, I, 157, pp. 90–91, tr. ACC I, pp. 156–57. 12. ACO II, I, 185, p. 95, tr. ACC I, p. 162. 13. ACO II, I, 187, pp. 95–96.

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letter to the council, the higher court in this case. It clearly takes Eutyches’ side, and one would be justified in supposing that Eutyches’ petition and the imperial response to it were both composed by the imperial office. is served the purpose of making it perfectly clear what the church was to do.14 His concern as emperor, eodosius wrote, was to keep the churches from ‘disturbance’, and he had decided that a council was necessary to deal with the furor caused by Flavian’s unwelcome decision to challenge Eutyches on ‘some questions about the holy faith’. e wording, though subtle, to the trained ear unmistakably situates the case: the natural quiet of ordinary church people devoted to orthodoxy, people like Eutyches, has been ‘disturbed’ unnecessarily by the traditional troublemakers, persons bent on investigating obscure questions and proposing innovative interpretations.15 (We may recall that this is precisely how Cyril situated his position over against that of Nestorius back at the start of the controversy). It was, as eodosius described it, a question of excising ‘promoters and supporters of the impious blasphemy of Nestorius’ in order to preserve ‘the orthodox faith’. He sets this agenda in the context of his assertion that ‘the orthodox creed which the holy fathers at Nicaea handed down and the holy council at Ephesus confirmed satisfied our needs.’ In the background lies, of course, Ephesus I’s Canon 7 against making new creeds, the charge for which Flavian and Eusebius were ultimately condemned. ey are, on the emperor’s analysis, the innovating enemies of traditional orthodoxy, and Eutyches its champion. ese two documents – eodosius’ letter of direction, and Eutyches’ petition, so obviously developed in tandem – make it absolutely clear what were the key legal grounds on which the council was expected to base a decision about Eutyches: since insisting on ‘two natures aer the union’, while claiming merely to clarify what Nicaea/Ephesus taught, essentially constituted a new creedal formula that went beyond Nicaea/Ephesus, it contravened the prohibition against new creeds of Canon 7. e implicit claim of new-formulae Cyrillians was that, by contrast, neither the anathemas nor the new formulae they used to interpret Nicaea/Ephesus actually went beyond them; they were, genuinely, only guides to interpreting the orthodox faith. at they were guides enunciated by Cyril, that he had presided over Ephesus I, and that he and Ephesus I were considered to 14. eodosius’ letter: ACO II, I, 51, pp. 73–74. 15. Opposing those who undertook dangerous, curiosity-driven flirtations with theological issues beyond their understanding to the ordinary folk who stood by their natural and safe orthodoxy was a common topos. We have, of course, seen Cyril make good use of it from his very first letter (to the monks of Egypt), but he was certainly not the first to do so.

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be interchangeable, gave a certain cogency to this claim. Flavian and Eusebius, by insisting on hated novelties, were to have their heterodoxy demonstrated. Eutyches, by contrast, was to have his orthodoxy proven by his demonstrated loyalty to the unadorned orthodox faith enunciated by Nicaea and Ephesus I.

H P   C Proof on either score was to be found in the records of what was said and done at the Home Synod. But there was conflicting evidence, since the official acts of the Home Synod, having been prepared by Flavian’s notaries, were suspected of distorting the record in such a way as to present a Eutyches tinged with heresy in more than one way. At least, so Eutyches claimed in a second petition to the emperor, this one asking that alleged falsifications in the minutes be investigated.16 eodosius granted the request; we hear of a series of at least four hearings into the matter before the council opened.17 We have minutes for only one of them, cited at great length at the council, and its corrections were destined to form part of the evidence for the council’s decision confirming Eutyches’ orthodoxy.18 Presided over by Florentius himself, this hearing gave Eutyches’ advocates an opportunity to challenge the official minutes where they disagreed with the minutes kept by other episcopal notaries, or their aides-mémoire, or the memories of those who had been present. ese ‘corrections’, not coincidentally, transformed in a positive way the picture of Eutyches at the Home Synod on three important points.19 In the first place, the official minutes gave a good deal of space to what Eutyches was reported to have said to the first deputation (the presbyter and advocate John, along with the deacon Andrew) that the Home Synod sent to read him Eusebius’ indictment and to order him to appear and defend himself. He was officially reported to have agreed that Christ was consubstantial with the Father, but to have denied he had ‘flesh consubstantial with us’, seemingly 16. e petition, having made its way through the imperial bureaucracy, was presented to a first ecclesiastical commission on April 8 of 449: ACO II, I, 556, p. 149. 17. eodosius not only granted the request, he instructed his representative, Macedonius, to see to it that ‘in every way [Eutyches’] representatives should be admitted and, through the reading of the documents, should verify what was said …’ ACO II, I, 567, p. 151, tr. ACC I, p. 233. 18. is hearing was held on April 13. 19. For our purposes it does not matter whose version of the record was historically accurate. e point here is that the ‘corrected’ record gave Ephesus II some of the ‘evidence’ it needed to prove Eutyches orthodox.

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denying thereby Christ’s real humanity and therefore falling into heresy.20 Upon cross-examination, John insisted this really was exactly what had been said. He was not backed up by his colleague Andrew, however, who denied hearing this admission. He was further embarrassed by the curious revelation that there was no record of this admission in his aide-mémoire.21 Andrew then went on to reveal something else that did more than just undermine John’s account. He said that, when John asked Eutyches about the double consubstantiality of Christ, Eutyches made the telling retort, ‘What does the creed say?’, to which John could only reply that the creed had only ‘consubstantial with the Father’, at which the archimandrite Eutyches countered, ‘so hold this yourself, since I too hold it’22 e connection between double consubstantiality and ‘two natures aer the incarnation’ had been pointed out explicitly by Florentius’ demand of Eutyches at the Home Synod: ‘Do you say, or not, that our Lord who is from the Virgin is consubstantial [with us] and from two natures aer the incarnation?’23 Eutyches of course refused to say two natures aer the incarnation, without addressing the issue of Christ’s consubstantiality with us. To deny it outright would have raised, as we have said, a disturbing question for inquiring minds: if Christ truly became man, as the creed said, how could he not be consubstantial with us? Eutyches neither denied nor confirmed it. He did not have an inquiring mind. Like Cyril before him, he did not, in fact, think it appropriate to have an inquiring mind about ineffable things. What he did, instead, if the correction is allowed to stand, was to assert a complete conservative faith, one embodied by Nicaea and Ephesus I alone: he assented only to what the creed said; if it said only that Christ was consubstantial with the Father, then that was what he said. Raising disturbing questions about such things, urging interpretations of the creed, was what Nestorians did – and what they were about to be condemned for. e official minutes had members of the second delegation sent to call him to the Home Synod posing the same question: ‘If then [Christ is] perfect God and perfect man, what stops us saying that the one Son is from two natures?’, to which Eutyches replied simply, ‘May I never say that Christ is from two natures or attempt to define the nature of my God’, another jibe at the willingness of Antiochenes to go beyond the traditional faith and define things better 20. Official minutes: ACO II, I, 359, p. 124; cited at the hearing, 643, p. 159. 21. ACO II, I, 652, p. 161. While, had the admission been found in the aide-mémoire but not in the official acts this could have been explained as an oversight, the fact that it was absent from the aide-mémoire suggested very strongly that it had been added to the official acts later, with intent to mislead. 22. Andrew’s account was backed up by the deacon Athanasius who, though not part of the delegation, happened to be present: ACO II, I, 667, p. 162, tr. ACC I, p. 246. 23. ACO II, I, 526, p. 143, tr. ACC I, p. 222.

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le alone.24 Eutyches’ representatives insisted, however, on a minor correction: he had gone on to say ‘I follow the teaching of the fathers.’25 ose words drove the point home: Eutyches was not denying Christ’s humanity, just sticking strictly to the Creed, the faith of the fathers, and saying neither more nor less than what it said. Most importantly, one of Eutyches’ representatives, Eleusinius, introduced a major correction of the account’s chronology of a crucial interchange between Eutyches and his prosecutors. As the official minutes would have it, Eusebius first demanded that Eutyches assent to two natures aer the union as taught by Cyril in the two ‘synodical’ letters. Eutyches agreed to ‘two natures’, but would not acknowledge either two natures aer the incarnation or – the previous point returning for a third time – Christ’s consubstantiality with us in the flesh. Instead, he demanded that a document he had brought recording his beliefs be read by someone else (he claimed he could not read it himself, presumably because of farsightedness, given his extreme old age), but Flavian refused.26 Only then did he claim that, though the document contained what he believed, ‘the declaration of the holy fathers is the same’; he reluctantly improvised a statement in which he acknowledged Christ’s ‘coming in the flesh … from the flesh of the Holy Virgin, and that he became man perfectly for our salvation.’27 Ordered in this way, the prosecution case establishes from the first the primacy of Cyril understood, from the two synodical letters, to teach ‘two natures aer the incarnation’, against which it sets Eutyches’ culpability for not accepting the teaching of the great father Cyril – so construed. It leaves the impression that he had little to offer by way of defence beyond the claim that he taught what the fathers taught, a claim undermined by his inability to articulate his teaching in anything more than a rudimentary way. Eleusinius, by contrast, claimed that, in reality, a quite different order obtained, and that the record should be corrected: ‘is [the official account] is not in the proper order’, he said. ‘[Eutyches] first presented a document containing the creed of the 318, as confirmed by the holy council at Ephesus, but when he produced this document the most God-beloved bishop would not accept it.’28 If one accepts the correction, Eutyches proved at the outset his allegiance to conservative Cyrillian orthodoxy in the familiar formulation ‘the creed of the 318 as confirmed by … Ephesus’, and the true minutes contrasted his acceptance of that 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

ACO II, I, 451, p. 136, tr. ACC I, p. 214. ACO II, I, 701, p. 165, tr. ACC I, p. 250. ACO II, I, 487–90, 498–503, pp. 140–41, tr. ACC I, pp. 219–20. ACO II, I, 502 and 505, p. 141, tr. ACC I, p. 220. ACO II, I, 728, p. 167, tr. ACC I, p. 253.

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version of Cyril with Flavian’s refusal even to let him read his statement.29 Flavian and his allies saw the danger at once, and tried in various ways to deny that Eutyches had ever read out such a statement.30 Eutyches’ representatives returned to the point. Whereas the official minutes had him mouthing vague platitudes as to the Trinity and christology when asked to set out his faith without recourse to the document he carried, they insisted that key words that followed, summing it all up, had been le out: ‘I believe as the 318 fathers at Nicaea decreed and the holy council at Ephesus confirmed.’31 Again, Eutyches’ Cyrillian credentials were confirmed by the corrected text, Flavian’s discredited. Again, there was of course denial from the Flavian side.32 e thrust of the Eutychian case soon became apparent. According to the official minutes Eutyches had refused to ‘anathematize every thing contrary to the doctrines that have been read, that is, that “our Lord who is from the Virgin is consubstantial [with us] and from two natures aer the incarnation”, and was anathematized by the synod on these grounds’.33 Corrected, the account agrees that he was indeed anathematized, but for refusing to anathematize, we emphasize, ‘those [that is, the people] who do not say [two natures aer the union]’.34 It was artful of Florentius, presiding over the hearing and pursuing, as he surely was, the emperor’s agenda, to ask that the reading proceed so that they might see just who these people were, knowing that Eutyches had named them: Athanasius and Cyril.35 e case for a miscarriage of justice was thus greatly strengthened by the evidence the corrections offered. 29. We know that Cyril’s new formulae, while not mentioned directly here, lay behind Eutyches’ stance. Aer all, at his trial the one thing he refused to do, even in the face of deposition, was to anathematize the fathers who said ‘one nature aer the union’: ACO II, I, 540, p. 144, tr. ACC I, p. 223. Corrected in 773, p. 171, tr. ACC I, p. 223. e formulae would not stay in the background for long. ey would be explicated by Eustathius of Berytus in the friendlier setting of Ephesus II, but here the long-established summary of Cyril’s historic faith was apparently considered sufficient for the purpose of showing which version of Cyril Eutyches accepted but Flavian rejected. To have appealed to the new formulae would have risked a challenge to the status of the letters which contained them that might have diverted the inquiry from its real agenda. Eustathius’ explication: ACO II, I, 261, pp. 184–85, tr. ACC I, pp. 184–85. at the status of the new-formulae letters was in fact challenged is indicated by the difficulties that continue to surround their transmission and dating. It was certainly in the interests of those who accepted Chalcedon to discredit these letters. at they were challenged specifically later on is evidenced by an interchange at the Conversations of 532 recorded by John of Beit Aphtona, for which see the Epilogue. 30. ACO II, I, 729–34, pp. 167–68, tr. ACC I, p. 253. 31. ACO II, I, 737, p. 168, tr. ACC I, p. 254. 32. ACO II, I, 738–53, pp. 168–70, tr. ACC I, pp. 255–56. 33. ACO II, I, 526, 534, 536, and 540, pp. 143–44, tr. ACC I, pp. 222–23. 34. ACO II, I, 773, p. 171, tr. ACC I, p. 258. at the issue was whether Eutyches was asked to anathematize persons or doctrines is attested also in 788, pp. 172–73, tr. ACC I, 260. 35. Florentius: ACO II, I, 774, p. 171 (tr. ACC I, p. 258); the names: 542, p. 144, and 775, p. 171 (tr. ACC I, pp. 224 and 259).

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ere were also irregularities in connection with the sentence pronounced on Eutyches, irregularities that further called in question the legitimacy of the Home Synod. According to the official minutes, Eutyches was condemned for the refusal discussed above: ‘If I anathematize, woe is me because I anathematize my fathers’, he said, whereupon ‘e holy synod rose and exclaimed: “Anathema to him!”’36 He was then sentenced by Flavian: he was to suffer deprivation of clerical and monastic rank. e grounds recorded, though, were rather vague: the taint of Apollinarian and Valentinian heresy, incorrigibility over ‘blasphemy’, and the ‘refusal to assent to the orthodox doctrines’.37 According to Eutyches’ representatives the real statement of the grounds for deposition was missing from this place in the text: e lord our archbishop made this demand to him, ‘Say two natures aer the union and anathematize those who do not say this?’ It was when he refused to anathematize these people (Athanasius and Cyril) saying ‘Woe is me if I anathematize the holy fathers!’ that [Flavian] carried out his deposition. is statement was missing [from the minutes], but it was read at the time.38

e rhetorical force of this correction, so far as Eutyches’ representatives were concerned, must have lain in the elimination of all doubt about what the Home Synod was guilty of doing: it had condemned and sentenced Eutyches, not for vague taints of heresy or obstinacy, but specifically for refusing to say ‘two natures aer the incarnation’, and for refusing to anathematize Athanasius and Cyril! It was also argued by Eutyches’ representatives that he had not been given the proper chance to positively prove his orthodoxy by agreeing with statements of faith from the bishops: ‘Another thing: the lord Bishop Seleucus said, “Let our declarations be read, to see if the achimandrite agrees with them.” Our lord archbishop ordered them to be read, but … [his notary] rose immediately and read the sentence of deposition; this also is missing.’39 In short the official minutes 36. ACO II, I, 535–36, pp. 143–44, tr. ACC I, p. 235. 37. ACO II, I, 551, p. 145, tr. ACC I, 225. e sentence was subscribed to by the bishops: ACO II, I, 552, pp. 145–47, tr. ACC I, p. 552. 38. ACO II, I, 788, pp. 172–73, tr. ACC I, p. 260. Note the telling insistence that the statement of grounds was read ‘then’. e issue seems to involve more than just the absence of the statement of grounds right before the sentencing where it belonged. e Eutychian case would have the condemnation immediately followed by the statement of grounds for deposition, in its turn immediately followed by the sentence of deposition. e otherwise unintelligible question (ACO II, I, 784, p. 172, tr. ACC I, p. 260), ‘Did the synod say this?’, makes sense as part of this argument. ‘is’ would seem to refer, not to the exclamations of ACO II, I, 550/783, pp. 145 and 172, but to what Flavian demanded Eutyches say; if so, the succeeding comments by the bishops make sense as responses, which is otherwise not the case. 39. ACO II, I, 788, pp. 172–73, tr. ACC I, p. 260.

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obscured the real charges against Eutyches and the grounds for sentencing him, and concealed the fact he had not been given any opportunity to demonstrate his orthodoxy, both of which might have been expected of a fair trial. Yet another petition lodged by Eutyches led to an additional hearing. On April 27, 449, with all the signs of imperial support and involvement, this hearing heard shocking new evidence: Magnus, the silentiary, revealed that, on one of his frequent errands from the court to Flavian’s offices in the days just before the Home Synod – its purpose being to discuss Florentius’ role at the synod –, [t]he archbishop postponed [the meeting], saying: ‘ere is no need for … Florentius to take the trouble to come here, for a sentence has already been delivered on the case, and the monk Eutyches has been deposed, because he did not heed a second summons.’ ey finally brought me a document containing his deposition.40

In short, Eutyches’ public trial was a sham, and justice certainly had not been done. ere was also new evidence from the tribune Macedonius supporting the claim that the minutes of the Home Synod had been altered. He reported that, as he was leaving one of the hearings on the minutes we have already discussed, Asterius, one of the notaries who had produced the official minutes, gave evidence against his former colleagues, exposing a conspiracy: ‘He accused … Abramius and the notaries of having altered certain paragraphs of the minutes, and said that, suspecting such malice, he felt compelled, albeit reluctantly, to denounce their crime.’41 is was obviously late-breaking news supportive of the case on behalf of Eutyches, news that eodosius and Eutyches’ partisans wanted made a matter of record before Ephesus II was convened. Given the considerable number of bishops who participated in the hearings, and the tendency of the hearings, even though no vote was taken, to present a convincing case that Eutyches had been misrepresented, that he really stood for what most could recognize as orthodox teaching, the 40. ACO II, I, 838, p. 178, tr. ACC I, p. 267. 41. ACO II, I, 846, pp. 178–79, tr. ACC I, p. 268. It is clear what the notaries were charged with, but not so clear what Abramius, a presbyter of Constantinople, was charged with. Besides being a signatory to the condemnation of Eutyches, he reported at the Home Synod that he had been sent to this same Asterius to tell him about the document on the faith Eutyches was attempting to circulate among the monasteries seeking signatures in support of it, with the intention of having Asterius pass the information on to Flavian. It seems probable that Abramius was somehow involved in the suppression of the content of this ‘tract about the faith’, itself in all likelihood identical with the suppressed but unexceptionable statement of traditional Cyrillian faith Eutyches tried to introduce at the beginning of the seventh session of the Home Synod: ACO II, I, 728, p. 167; signatory: ACO II, I, 552 (38), pp. 145–47.

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net effect, whether or not made explicit at the forthcoming council, was to influence the bishops who were about to sit in that council to favour Eutyches and to turn them against Flavian, Eusebius, and the Home Synod. All the pieces were now in place: citing a plot against him on the part of Flavian and Eusebius that had resulted in his condemnation and deposition, Eutyches had appealed for redress; the emperor had given robust instruction as to how this was to be achieved; the legal process of appeal, adapted by the church from the Roman tradition, was in place; and the record of what had been said and done at the Home Synod had been corrected in such a way as to invalidate the case against Eutyches. e Second Ecumenical Council of Ephesus could begin.

T S C  E On 8 August, 449, the extraordinarily long opening session of Ephesus II took place.42 It unfolded along predictable lines, given the agenda so specifically laid out by eodosius. Once the bishops were seated, John the protonotary announced that eodosius had convoked the council ‘to investigate the new excrescences on our orthodox and unimpeachable faith and pull them out by the roots …’, all in the cause of preserving the faith of the fathers set out by Nicaea and Ephesus I, undoubtedly intending by that familiar phrase the Cyrillian faith of Eutyches.43 Sacra sent to all metropolitans were then read; they called for the elimination of ‘disturbing’ and ‘confusing’ disputes, and, if anyone wondered what disputants were meant, pointedly excluded eodoret from the council.44 at the fundamental imperial agenda, here as in the affair of the Home Synod, was always to establish peace in the church that would support the peace of the empire, was made clear by Count Helpidius: the emperor, he reports, entrusts the current dispute to the bishops, but he ‘expects from [them] a resolution of the controversy …’ 45 He does not leave it to them to decide who is at fault. In his letter to the council, read next, he directs 42. e Council of Chalcedon was hostile to Ephesus II, but fortunately preserved most, if not all, of the acts of this session in the process of dealing with an appeal from Eusebius and, posthumously, of Flavian against their condemnation and deposition by Ephesus II. Without that incentive, other acts were naturally not preserved by Chalcedonians, but there are records in Syriac of other sessions of a council anti-Chalcedonians revere: Fergus Miller, ‘e Syriac Acts of the Second Council of Ephesus (449)’, in Price and Whitby (eds.), Chalcedon in Context, pp. 45–69. 43. ACO II, I, 79, p. 82, tr. ACC I, pp. 146–47. 44. ACO II, I, 24, p. 68, tr. ACC I, p. 133. 45. ACO II, I, 111, pp. 85–86, tr. ACC I, pp. 150–51.

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them to ‘expel from the holy churches the promoters and supporters of the impious blasphemy of Nestorius, and decree the preservation of the orthodox faith …’ 46 What was amply clear from various documents prior to the council was thus made absolutely clear directly to the council: they were to expel Flavian and those who thought as he did, that is, those who said ‘two natures aer the Incarnation’; that was Nestorianism. ey were to exalt those who claimed that they taught exactly what Cyril taught, which was exactly what Nicaea and Ephesus I taught, and that, when pressed, did not include two natures aer the incarnation. e procedural crux that faced the council at this point was a simple one: were they to begin at once to address Eutyches’ appeal for redress by examining the acts of the Home Synod, or were they first, since the appeal involved the issue of his orthodoxy or heterodoxy, to establish what in fact constituted the orthodox faith so that what anyone now said could be measured against it? e obvious and logical course was the latter, and it was soon made clear that this was in any case the course dictated by the emperor.47 Dioscorus, president of the council, agreed: ‘certain matters … were raised at Constantinople’, one being the matter of Eutyches’ orthodoxy, and they should be ‘clarified’ first, as directed by ‘the canonical rules’, the question being ‘whether the novelties in question agree with the decrees of our holy fathers’.48 e point being made is not immediately clear, but probably the best explanation – given how the preparations for the council set the direction to be taken, the telltale allusion to ‘novelties’, and Dioscorus’ spelling out of the alternative with the challenge ‘Or do you wish to invalidate the creed of the holy fathers?’ – is that Dioscorus was calling upon Canon 7 of Ephesus I: the question of the faith here was whether or not Flavian et al. had, contrary to the canon, introduced novelties into the creed in the course of attacking Eutyches.49 e bishops obligingly agreed that their goal, too, was simply to ‘preserve the creed of the fathers’ not to ‘elaborate on it’.50 In this light, establishing what the faith was was a simple matter. As Dioscorus put it, ‘In order to convince everyone, to confirm the faith and refute the novelties, I am examining the fathers, those at Nicaea and at 46. ACO II, I, 51, pp. 73–74, tr. ACC I, p. 139. 47. alassius of Caesarea in Cappadocia reported that the emperor had ‘ordered that nothing be discussed or decided … until the question of the faith is settled’: ACO II, I, 116, p. 86, tr. ACC I, p. 151. Helpidius confirmed that, the creed being at the heart of the issue being addressed, the faith should come first, followed by a reading of the acts of the Home Synod: ACO II, I, 118, p. 86. 48. ACO II, I, 119, pp. 86–87, tr. ACC I, p. 152. 49. ACO II, I, 119, pp. 86–87, tr. ACC I, p. 152. 50. ACO II, I, 120, p. 87, tr. ACC I, p. 152.

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Ephesus.’51 Moreover, though there were two councils, they ‘relate to one faith’.52 e present council agreed that the witness of these two councils comprised ‘a comprehensive definition’. e orthodox faith, in other words, was the faith of Nicaea as confirmed by Ephesus in the form of Cyril’s Second Letter to Nestorius. No one was permitted to add to it, and from it no one was permitted to subtract.53 Anyone who attempted to do so was to be declared anathema and expelled.54 Helpidius declared himself satisfied that they had established what the faith was, and moved proceedings forward to address the second agendum of the council, the case of Eutyches, he being then called to appear and defend his plaint against Flavian and Eusebius, which plaint was then read to the council.55 e plaint contained no real surprises, summing up the case that had been taking shape in one form or another during the preparations for the council examined above. Eutyches had, he said, been the victim of a conspiracy because he would not say anything contrary to Nicaea. at creed was confirmed by Ephesus I, presided over by Cyril, and a canon was enacted forbidding any alteration to it. He had followed the usual orthodox fathers, and anathematized the usual heretics, including any that said Jesus’ flesh came down from heaven, a bizarre doctrine he had never held. Eusebius had charged him, vaguely with a charge of heresy, hoping he would, under pressure, say something heretical. In the disorder that ensued he had not been allowed to read a prepared statement of his beliefs that was ‘in conformity with the creed issued by … Nicaea and … confirmed at Ephesus’, but did manage to declare that he agreed with Nicaea and Ephesus. He was then ‘required … to make certain statement that went beyond the definitions at Nicaea and at … Ephesus.’56 His appeal for a council had been ignored. Moreover, there was proof that his sentence had been determined before the council met. He had been sentenced, deposed, and had become the subject of a systematic campaign to get him condemned by monasteries and churches. He had narrowly escaped violence. Eventually he had lodged an appeal seeking a higher court to rule 51. ACO II, I, 136, p. 88, tr. ACC I, p. 154. e sense might perhaps be better captured if one in English had Dioscorus say ‘what I do … to confirm the faith … is examine the fathers’, bringing out an intended contrasting of his reverential approach with his opponents’ hubristic attempts to explain what the creed ‘actually meant’, of necessity using novel terms to do so. 52. ACO II, I, 141, p. 89, tr. ACC I, p. 154. 53. ACO II, I, 142, p. 89, tr. ACC I, p. 154. 54. ACO II, I, 146, p. 89, tr. ACC I, p. 155. 55. Helpidius: ACO II, I, 151, p. 155; the calling of Eutyches: ACO II, I, 151–54, pp. 155– 56; the plaint: ACO II, I, 157, pp. 156–57; ACO II, I, 164, p. 158; ACO II, I, 185, pp. 162–64. 56. ACO II, I, 185, p. 162.

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on his case. He closed, tactically, by repeating the essence of his case for rehabilitation: he was in complete agreement with Nicaea as confirmed by Ephesus, and anathematized anyone who held the contrary. With this, the Council was almost ready to end the preliminaries and, guided by Helpidius, begin, by agreement, the laborious scrutiny of the acts of the Home Synod. e Roman legates were not quite ready to proceed: they wanted Leo’s Tome, a vigorous attack on Eutyches, to be read first. Eutyches cut off Hilary’s attempt to start reading the Tome, complaining that Rome and Constantinople were in league with each other against him. Dioscorus argued that the acts should be read first, and then the letter, but the Council never returned to the letter whether intentionally or inadvertently, a source of permanent outrage to Rome.57

A D C  C e extent to which the name of Cyril by this time automatically conjured up applause – both sides were, aer all, openly claiming the mantle of Cyril – is revealed by their breaking into cheers at the point in the minutes of the Home Synod at which Eusebius claimed that he had always abided by ‘the beliefs and definitions of blessed Cyril …’58 We know what he was up to: he was beginning to reiterate the case for an Antiochenefriendly version of Cyrillian faith, and those who had been planning Ephesus II precisely to suppress that version of Cyrillian faith knew it too. e minutes of the Home Synod had been poured over many times, certainly by the many hearings that had been called, and Dioscorus and the imperial officials must have prepared for this moment. Before the bishops were allowed to hear Eusebius’ argument, then, they were handed the ‘correct’ version of Cyril, the version the authorities wanted Ephesus II to put in its place. e man chosen for the job was Eustathius of Berytus, a man experienced in countering Antiochene strategies, eodosius having appointed him the year before as one of the commissioners inquiring into the orthodoxy of Ibas of Edessa, one of the most vocal Antiochenes. His eloquent intervention now, clearly pointing the way to what the council was supposed to conclude, needs to be cited in extenso:

57. Helpidius’ guidance: ACO II, I, 197, p. 97; Dioscorus’ agreement: ACO II, I, 198, p. 97; the bishops’ votes in favour: ACO II, I, 199–215, pp. 97–99; the Roman delegates’ qualified agreement, and Eutyches’ suspicion of their objectivity: ACO II, I, 217–21, p. 99; Hilary’s false start: ACO II, I, 219, p. 99; the reading commences: ACO II, I, 222, p. 99. 58. ACO II, I, 226, p. 101, tr. ACC I, p. 170.

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Now that these previously written letters have been read, it is necessary to make clear to your holiness that God ordained for our father Cyril archbishop of Alexandria, most blessed and sacred in memory, that some of the things that he wrote were disputed in his lifetime by those who did not understand correctly what he had put so well. In consequence, with his all-wise and instructive utterance he explained his well-composed writings to those who wanted to distort them, and persuaded everyone to follow his pious doctrine. But when certain other people used the letters that have just been read to dispute the doctrine of this most blessed and sacred man, he felt the necessity, or rather the desire (for he devoted all his time to this work of piety), to explain himself and show and present his meaning clearly to all by means of the letters which he wrote to the then bishops of blessed and sacred memory Acacius of Melitene, Valerian of Iconium and Succensus of Diocaesarea in the province of Isauria; these explain how one should understand the letters which have just been read and the mystery of the coming of our Saviour. e letters to those blessed men state among other things, ‘One should not conceive of two natures but of one incarnate nature of the Word’, and he confirmed this statement of his by the testimony of the most blessed Athanasius.59

ere could not be a clearer message to the council: the new-formulae letters are to be the key to understanding Cyril, and that includes properly understanding the letters Eusebius has cited in support of his position. Because Cyril was the recognized interpreter of the Nicene Creed, moreover, the new-formulae letters were to be the key to understanding it too. Whatever is said anywhere in Cyril about two natures, then, is to be understood by the criterion of the new-formulae letters, that is, as referring to two natures before the Incarnation; he never, in any writings, meant to assert two natures aer the Incarnation, but always one incarnate nature.60 is, Eustathius is telling the council, is true Cyrillian orthodoxy, and it is in the light of this orthodoxy that Flavian’ and Eusebius’ charge of heterodoxy against Eutyches, and Eutyches’ own claim to be orthodox, are to be judged. As if the implications for Flavian and Eusebius were not clear enough, they were immediately made clearer, for the council heard, as the reading of the acts of the Home Synod resumed, how Flavian dared to claim to have the authoritative teaching of Cyril and the fathers on Christ, that 59. ACO II, I, 261, p. 112, tr. ACC I, pp. 184–85. It is perhaps amusing to observe Eustathius’ attempt to maintain the sainted Cyril’s perfect clarity of expression while having to admit that his ‘well-written’ writings le themselves all too readily open to misunderstanding, indeed stood in serious need of clarification. 60. It is one of the hallmarks of the ongoing quarrel about Cyril that the one thing all seem to have agreed on, contrary to the plain evidence, was that Cyril never changed his mind, that his thought was entirely consistent throughout his career. Resolving the obvious contradiction between the synodical letters and the new-formulae letters was a challenge that would trouble later controversialists.

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he is ‘from two natures aer the incarnation …’ 61, a position seconded in the acts of the Home Synod by Basil of Seleucia and Seleucus of Amaseia.62 Ephesus II saw clearly that this was precisely what the Cyrillianism outlined by Eustathius utterly opposed. ‘No one’, the council cried, ‘says the Lord is two after the union.’63 In case anyone had missed the point that this was not just what an isolated Nestorius or even an isolated Nestorian faction said, but what Flavian and Eusebius and many others said, Dioscorus gave the dark warning, ‘Why do we blame Nestorius alone? ere are many Nestoriuses.’ 64 (We are probably justified in seeing here the abandonment of the hopeful assessment Cyril made a few years earlier, at least in public statements, that John and the majority of the Antiochenes, properly understood, were in substantial agreement with him, and that therefore the Union agreement was still in effect). e protonotary John, with timing as superb as Eustathius’, brought the focus back to the legal case being established for condemning Flavian and Eusebius and exonerating Eutyches: ‘Let us note from what has been read that those who speak in this way expound a different creed from that issued at Nicaea and confirmed at the earlier council here.’65 Eustathius had insisted that, authoritatively interpreted by the new-formulae letters, Nicaea/Ephesus effectively taught ‘out of two natures before the Incarnation’. To put it plainly, Flavian and Eutyches had attempted to introduce novelties beyond the Creed of Nicaea properly understood by claiming that Cyril taught ‘two natures aer the Incarnation’, and therefore were in breach of the famous canon against innovation. e council then heard read the many protestations of bishops at the Home Synod that they agreed with Flavian and Eusebius. e reading was interrupted from time to time by the undignified attempts of some of those bishops, seeing how the land now lay, to disown what they had said. e writing was, however, on the wall. A hard-edged new-formulae Cyrillianism was in the ascendance, and it was shaping an aggressive agenda; the accommodations of the past would no longer be tolerated. ere followed the uninterrupted reading of the acts of the Home Synod through to its last and seventh session, at which Eutyches unexpectedly appeared and was cross-examined. When they reached the critical point 61. ACO II, I, 271, pp. 113–14, tr. ACC I, pp. 186–87. As has been remarked, saying ‘from’ rather than ‘in’ does not make this the meaningful accommodation to Cyrillianism it is sometimes thought to be. e really significant word here is ‘aer’, and it positively identifies Flavian with the Antiochene camp’s claimed Cyril. 62. ACO II, I, 301–302, pp. 117–18. 63. ACO II, I, 303, p. 118, tr. ACC I, p. 191. 64. ACO II, I, 304, p. 118, tr. ACC I, p. 191. 65. ACO II, I, 305, p. 118.

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at which, having driven him to admit ‘from two natures’, Eusebius demanded ‘Do you acknowledge … two natures aer the incarnation . .?’, the bishops of Ephesus II cried out ‘Destroy and burn Eusebius. Let him be burnt alive. Let him be cut in two. As he has divided, let him be divided.’ 66 ‘Do you allow this language speaking of two natures aer the incarnation?’, demanded Dioscorus, to which came the reply, ‘Anathema to whoever says this.’ Dioscorus asked for a show of hands, showing that this was to be taken as a formal vote to anathematize.67 e case against Flavian and Eusebius having reached this conclusion, there remained the question of Eutyches’ orthodoxy. It was summarily dealt with: the acts of the Home Synod soon came upon Eutyches’ brief viva voce statement of faith, and his faith – his, it was made clear, not Eusebius’ – was declared to be the faith of the fathers by the council.68 en the reading of the acts of the Home Synod arrived at Florentius’ cross-examination, and the final stand from which Eutyches refused to back down: ‘I acknowledge that our Lord came into being from two natures before the union; but aer the union I acknowledge one nature.’ Dioscorus and the council naturally agreed.69 Basil of Seleucia’s unedifying denial at this point that he had jumped on the bandwagon against Eutyches, clearly an attempt to switch to the latest winning side, need not detain us long, except insofar as it helps us to understand how it came about that so many of the bishops who voted one way at the Home Synod voted the opposite way at Ephesus, and shortly thereaer reversed themselves again at Chalcedon, voting as they had at the Home Synod: for most of them, certainly for Basil, it was pretty clearly not a matter of their coming to a more mature understanding, as one might naively have hoped, but of their being determined to hang on to their thrones.70 ere followed the long and tedious reading of the acts of the hearing into the minutes of April 13, 449, discussed at some length above. Perhaps because of exhaustion – the session really was exceedingly long – the bishops almost universally sat quietly. ey had probably had time and opportunity to be influenced by the corrections in favour of Eutyches proposed during the hearings before Ephesus II convened. Only the apparently desperate Basil of Seleucia interrupted the reading, this time to disown and anathematize what he had affirmed at the Home Synod; he was followed in the same vein by Seleucus of Amaseia.71 Flavian refused to 66. 67. 68. 69. 70. 71.

ACO II, I, 490–91, p. 140, tr. ACC I, p. 219. ACO II, I, 492–95, p. 140, tr. ACC I, p. 219. e statement: ACO II, I, 505, p. 141; the council’s declaration: 506–509, p. 141. ACO II, I, 527–28, p. 143, tr. ACC I, p. 222. ACO II, I, 546, pp. 144–45. Basil: ACO II, I, 850, p. 179; Seleucus: ACO II, I, 864, p. 181.

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speak in his own defence, proudly saying ‘I have never held a different view or opinion, nor shall I in future.’72 ere remained the formal vote: each bishop was to ‘say what he thinks about the faith of the archimandrite Eutyches, and what is his sentence on him.’ ere followed the individual judgements, all declaring him orthodox. He was restored to ecclesiastical and monastic rank.73 His community of monks, who had been excommunicated by Flavian, were also restored.74 ere followed, at Dioscorus’ suggestion, the reverential reading of relevant sections from the acts of Ephesus I in a kind of celebration of all things Cyrillian. is was followed by a vote in writing effectively reaffirming obedience to Canon 7 of Ephesus I. Was anyone permitted, Dioscorus asked, to ‘inquire or revise in addition to this creed [of Nicaea]?’75 Certainly not, said the bishops: ‘We are all of the same conviction and belief.’76 Dioscorus then drew the fatal conclusion. Since Ephesus I has laid down canon 7, and the penalty it requires for innovating is expulsion from the episcopacy for bishops, from clerical rank for clerics, and excommunication for laypersons, and [s]ince … Flavian formerly bishop of the church of Constantinople and Eusebius of Dorylaeum are seen to have stirred up and perverted almost everything … it is clear that they have brought upon themselves the penalties which were then defined by our holy fathers in council. erefore … we have delivered the judgement that the aforesaid Flavian and Eusebius are deprived of all priestly and episcopal dignity.77

Flavian’s appeal, apparently to Pope Leo through his representative Hilary, who lodged an objection, was ignored in the general boisterous enthusiasm for what had been established, and the rush as bishops hastened to register their individual votes and bring the session to a close.78 What the first session of Ephesus II did, then, was in many ways the reverse image of what the Home Synod did. Given the virtually universal recognition of Cyril’s authority for orthodoxy, the Home Synod had been meant, by persons like Flavian allied to the Antiochene circle, people operating at this point in alliance with the emperor, to suppress the growing enthusiasm among traditional Cyrillians for the new formulae he had enunciated by way of explaining what a Cyrillian dyophysitism looked like (‘out of two natures before the Incarnation’, ‘one incarnate nature’ 72. 73. 74. 75. 76. 77. 78.

ACO II, I, 882, p. 182, tr. ACC I, p. 273. e direction to vote: ACO II, I, 883, p. 182; the votes: ACO II, I, 884, pp. 182–86. ACO II, I, 885–904, pp. 186–89. ACO II, I, 943, pp. 189–90, tr. ACC I, pp. 340–41. ACO II, I, 961, p. 191, tr. ACC I, p. 343. ACO II, I, 962, p. 191, tr. ACC I, p. 343–44. ACO II, I, 963–64, p. 191.

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aer it). e texts Flavian’s strategy used, claiming special authority for them, were replaced by new-formulae texts. Had it succeeded, peace under the Union might perhaps have had a long life, though the reality of widespread support for a very different version of Cyril suggests that was not a realistic expectation. It did not succeed because of that widespread support, and eodosius was driven by that harsh reality to reverse his policy. Ephesus II, the product of that reversal, was meant by persons throughout the eastern empire who thought as Dioscorus did, in alliance with the newly chastened emperor, to reverse the Home Synod. It was determined to suppress the use of those two two-natures-aer-the-Incarnation letters as the keys to interpreting Cyril, and to replace them in that role with the new-formulae letters, whose champions were now officially the wearers of the mantle of Cyril. In its favour was the plausible argument that Cyril himself had intended to explain himself in this way. It hoped to make this so for the whole church by condemning and deposing Flavian and Eusebius in their turn as examples of what persons now risked if they opposed ‘orthodoxy’ so construed. Claims to the mantle of Cyril were very much at the heart of the controversy as it went on.

E  W   C e risks persons like Flavian and Eusebius faced were absolutely real. Eusebius escaped to the west, but Flavian died, suspiciously, in the custody of imperial troops.79 It is not impossible, even, that his death was secretly ordered by eodosius as part of covering up his now-embarrassing previous involvement on Flavian’s side. Subsequent sessions of the council brought the risks on one side home when it purged the church of many key members of the Antiochene circle, notably Ibas of Edessa, Irenaeus of Tyre, eodoret, and even the patriarch Domnus of Antioch himself.80 It may have looked as though, with ‘the faith’ easily established at the first session, and with the ‘troublemakers’ from the diocese of Oriens – always 79. e block of bishops centred in the diocese of Oriens attempted to make Dioscorus out to be Flavian’s ‘murderer’, yet they revealingly asserted in the same breath that it was actually imperial troops who killed him: ‘Drive out the murderer. The soldiers killed Flavian’: ACO II, I, 54, p. 75, tr. ACC I, pp. 140–41. Only one interpretation makes sense: they blame Dioscorus, whom they see as ultimately responsible, but they know perfectly well who actually killed Flavian, the imperial soldiers who escorted him from the council: Bevan, Nestorius, p. 432, and Henry Chadwick, ‘e Exile and Death of Flavian of Constantinople: a Prologue to the Council of Chalcedon’, JThS ns 6 (1955), pp. 17–34. 80. Flemming, Akten: Ibas, pp. 61–69; Irenaeus, pp. 73–76; eodoret, pp. 106–109; Domnus, pp. 150–51.

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a minority – expelled at later sessions, the church in the east was well on its way to having an agreed Cyrillian faith along the lines favoured by Dioscorus. ere were risks for this side as well, though. It would have been foolish, for one thing, to consider the Antiochenes subdued for good; they had shown themselves to be both resilient and clever, always coming up with a new strategy, or a new wrinkle on an old strategy, for gaining the advantage for their side. en there was the west. Rome had become allied with Cyril against Nestorius earlier, but theirs was an alliance based, on Rome’s part, on the supposed incipient Pelagianism of Nestorius, not on any deeper agreement on how to articulate the faith. Latin writers on christology had, in fact, long spoken of one person and two natures, literally for centuries; the west’s way of expressing its faith in Christ was thus closer to that of the Antiochenes. Now Flavian had supplied Pope Leo with inaccurate accounts of Eutyches, and Leo had written his famous Tome to Flavian against what he supposed were the patently heretical teachings of Eutyches. Convinced that Eutyches’ ‘one nature’ meant that he mixed the human and the divine in Christ, Leo insisted that, on the contrary, ‘each nature preserves without any loss its own distinctive character’.81 Eutyches’ complaint at Ephesus II of fraternization and collusion between the papal legates and Flavian in 448 should probably be credited.82 From Rome’s point of view the case against Eutyches was closed, and her collegiality with Flavian and the church of Constantinople that had joined Rome in condemning Eutyches was the most natural thing in the world. Leo expected the Tome to be accepted in the east as the last and final word on Eutyches, but it had been received, not read, by Ephesus II, despite the objections of the papal legates,83 and Eutyches, shockingly, had been exonerated contrary to the Tome’s clear direction. Rome was on the verge of realizing how much the west had in common with the Antiochenes on the central point of ‘before’ or ‘aer’, at the very same time as her pride and ambition were deeply wounded. Alliances were about to shi dramatically. How or whether eodosius had a plan for winning over the west is not known. It is known that he flatly refused western requests to re-open the council. e scene was set for yet another phase of the ongoing controversy and, as ever, at its heart would lie the struggle to claim the mantle of Cyril. It would be pursued in the context of yet more quasi-legal proceedings, the proceedings of a new church council, the Council of Chalcedon. 81. ACO II, I, 1, 3, pp. 13–14, tr. ACC II, p. 18. 82. ACO II, I, 1, 220, p. 99. 83. ACO II, I, 82–84, pp. 82–83.

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T M   ‘E H’ It will not have gone unnoticed that we have not, in our account of Ephesus II, for one minute succumbed to the glib narrative according to which the bishops who voted with Dioscorus – most of them the very bishops who had voted with Flavian at the Home Synod, and were about to vote with Eusebius at Chalcedon, and who therefore were not, surely, hardcore Monophysites! – had been infected by self-evidently heretical ‘Monophysite’ or ‘Eutychian’ beliefs. Our study has found in Eutyches only a Cyrillian of the new-formulae type that had emerged from Cyril’s own re-articulation of his faith. It emerged, by understandable processes we have identified, out of the ongoing controversy that began with attacks on the title theotokos back in 428. He and Ephesus II did not embrace a new heresy; they defended an established Cyrillian tradition the Home Synod had been designed to suppress. ere was a rival narrative about the ‘new’ heresy of Eutychianism, and it was embedded in Leo’s Tome, based on Leo’s faulty knowledge of what Eutyches stood for, ‘knowledge’ that derived, aer all, from the hostile Flavian, hardly an objective or truthful source when it came to Eutyches.84 e legitimacy of Ephesus II – a council that, from what we have seen, was intended to be a serious ecumenical council of the church that was organized constitutionally, and that reached serious conclusions about the faith reflecting what was widely believed in the church of the eastern empire – was bound to be undermined wherever this deceptive narrative gained ground. It would be one powerful strand among several that came to form the dominant narrative of Chalcedon.

84. ough the western tradition has made of Flavian a martyr for the orthodox faith, it is worthwhile bearing in mind that he plainly lied about his supposed earlier friendship with Eutyches, secretly and improperly arranged for Eutyches to be condemned before he had even been tried, and subscribed to Nestorius’ intentionally misleading protectivecolouration strategy of concealing one’s true Antiochene identity and of passing oneself off as a Cyrillian by pretending to condemn Nestorius. Dissimulation was a habit with Flavian.

C 12

THE COUNCIL OF CHALCEDON OPENS In the previous episode, eodosius responded to the wave of anger that the Home Synod had aroused among admirers of Cyril convinced of the legitimacy of the new formulae by calling a new council, Ephesus II. It was to hear Eutyches’ appeal against Flavian, the archbishop of Constantinople who had presided over the Home Synod, but what was really at stake was the issue of ‘before’ and ‘aer’. Eustathius of Berytus made the winning argument that earlier writings of Cyril were to be explained in the light of the later writings, and the latter said ‘two natures’ only ‘before the union’. Eutyches’ exoneration established this as orthodox teaching. Le to one side was Leo of Rome, who had condemned Eutyches in his famous Tome; this did not bode well for church unity. If Rome were to be drawn into closer unity with the church in the east, the tension between the new formulae and Leo’s christological language would have to be resolved in some way. An emperor willing to tackle that challenge was about to enter the world stage. When eodosius’ long reign was suddenly and unexpectedly ended by his accidental death in late July of 450 as a result of a hunting accident, he was succeeded by the usurper Marcian, a racian general.1 As such, Marcian contrasted sharply with eodosius, the descendant of a long line of emperors; he was unlikely to share eodosius’ reluctance to treat the church roughly, even when it exasperated him. With Marcian came another of the drastic reversals of policy that marked the ongoing history of the Nestorian Controversy. eodosius had tried to unify the fractured church by several widely different strategies. He attempted to do so by means of the Union of 433 and the Home Synod of 448, uniting them under the mantle of the ‘synodical’ Cyril. While this undoubtedly pleased the strategy’s Antiochene architects and Rome, the whole edifice crumbled before the ferocious opposition of most of the churches in the east. He responded by radically reversing his policy and attempting to bring the churches together at Ephesus II, this time under the mantle of a very differently construed Cyril, the Cyril of the new formulae. e new policy 1. On Marcian as usurper, see Richard Burgess, ‘e Accession of Marcian in the Light of Chalcedonian Apologetic and Monophysite Polemic’, BZ 86–87 (1993–94), pp. 47–68.

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met with greater success than the old – in the east, where convincing Cyrillian credentials were, and always would be, required for any doctrinal statement to be widely accepted. But the policy succeeded in producing unity for the church only by studiously ignoring Rome, something made quite clear when Ephesus II received, but did not read or approve, Leo’s Tome.2 It is impossible to say exactly how eodosius would have tried to bring Rome into line, as he would have been compelled to do, had he lived longer. Marcian was very different from eodosius on the Rome question. e west mattered to him. He owed a debt to Rome for supporting his questionable elevation, and he had moreover solidified his claim to the imperial throne by marrying Pulcheria, eodosius’ sister, and she stood, as did other western members of the imperial family, with Rome. ere were thus strong ties binding the court to Rome and therefore to what Rome cared about, and that included her particular way of stating orthodoxy. When it came to ecclesiastical affairs, Marcian recognized from the beginning that an always-inflexible Rome had somehow to be included in any universally successful settlement of the ongoing controversy, and made that the cornerstone of his policy. At the same time, he could not help realizing that the central condition for widespread success in the east remained unchanged: any agreement would have to establish its Cyrillian credentials. It was not obvious how the incompatibility between these very different stances could be resolved, but it was clear that this was the challenge he must meet. He needed somehow to satisfy Rome while holding the church and empire together. His attempt to do so would eventually lead him to the calling of yet another ecumenical council.

R’ A Rome, for her part, had a definite agenda for how Marcian’s debt to her was to be paid, an agenda shaped by her sense of outrage at what had been happening in the east. Misinformed by Flavian as to what Eutyches stood for; ignorant of Flavian’s use of the strategy of protective colouration recommended by Nestorius, and therefore convinced that Flavian was genuinely on the same wavelength as Cyril; gratified that Flavian appealed to her against Eutyches; moved by the narrative that made Flavian a martyr for orthodoxy; outraged at seeing the ‘heretical’ Eutyches 2. e introduction of the Tome: ACO II, I, 83, p. 83; the Tome received but not read: ACO II, I, 87–92, pp. 83–84.

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whom she had condemned restored by Ephesus II; wounded in her amour propre by that council’s failure to read, let alone submit to, a magisterial letter that, in her view, ought to have been sufficient to establish orthodoxy by virtue of papal authority alone; she was determined to use her alliance with the new emperor to undo the work of Ephesus II and to ensure that the whole church aligned itself with her version of orthodoxy. She therefore began immediately to work towards these ends. Restoring the memory of Flavian was part of it. Restoring or installing sympathetic bishops in her sphere of influence in the Constantinopolitan church (including a new archbishop for that city, the co-operative Anatolius), as well as in the patriarchate of Antioch, especially in Oriens, was another. e correspondence between Marcian, Pulcheria, Pope Leo, and the bishops temporarily assembled at Nicaea during the first fieen months of Marcian’s reign reveals the emerging plan.3 Not only was Rome to be included in a consensus, her way of stating christology was to be the defining way. e work of Ephesus II was, in the eyes of the pope, and on his authority, to be considered undone; Leo’s Tome was assumed to have once and for all condemned Eutyches and his ‘heresy’, and to have set out the orthodox faith.4 What remained to be done, as far as Rome was concerned, was for Marcian simply to ‘order that the decrees of … Nicaea should stand, with the suppression of the interpretation of the heretics’, that is, with the suppression of Dioscorus’ and Ephesus II’s interpretation in favour of Leo’s;5 Nestorius and Eutyches were to be condemned equally;6 Flavian’s memory was to be restored, and his body reburied 3. e important texts are translated in ACC I, pp. 92–110. 4. According to Leo the Tome ‘declared most fully and most lucidly what is the pious and pure confession of the mystery of the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ at is why, in Rome’s view, nothing really remained to be done except the restoration of bishops expelled by Ephesus II (Leo to the Council, ACO II, IV, pp. 51–52). 5. Leo to Marcian, ACO II, IV, p. 48. As had been the case all along, the conflict over christology was in large part a conflict between interpretations of Nicaea, but as the conflict went on, as we have seen, the way this conflict had evolved meant that, by this time, it could more precisely be defined as a conflict between rival versions of Cyrilthe-quintessential-interpreter-of-Nicaea. Pope Leo showed in this text that he was just the latest to take up one side of the ongoing conflict. Chalcedon, responding to his demands, though not in the way he expected – he attempted to back away from the plan of holding an ecumenical council – was not likely to differ from what had gone before on this point, and indeed it did not. 6. Here we have the beginning of a glib tradition in historical theology that supposes there was such a thing as Eutychianism/monophysitism, and that it can be counter-posed to Nestorianism, with sound orthodoxy of the Chalcedonian persuasion supposedly treading the royal road between these symmetrically-opposed heresies. Leo is apparently the first to pair the two: their ‘twinned impiety’ as defeated by Pulcheria’s solicitude (Leo to Pulcheria, ACO II, IV, pp. 37–38, tr. ACC I, p. 95); they have ‘veered, on different paths but with equal impiety’ (Leo to Marcian, ACO II, IV, p. 98, tr. ACC I, p. 100); the true

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with those of his predecessors in the Church of the Apostles in Constantinople, symbolically re-establishing the prestige of the Constantinopolitan church and firmly cementing her alliance with Rome;7 Eusebius of Dorylaeum was to be restored to his see; other susceptible bishops were to be recruited to the cause by a campaign of acquiring subscriptions to the Tome.8 It was an ambitious agenda; the assumption on Rome’s part that it could be achieved simply by the exercise of papal and imperial authority reveals that it was also a naive one. Still, there was a momentum to what Rome did and said, however narrow its scope, that could be incorporated into a wider plan. Marcian shared Leo’s agenda, but he was well aware that, to achieve the vision pursued by every emperor – a church completely at peace holding together an empire at peace (which for him as for his predecessor meant a church that universally agreed on what constituted the faith, it being glaringly obvious that differences on the faith were what the churches habitually seemed to quarrel over) – he needed some way to induce the whole church of the empire, the fractious east as well as the intransigent west, to come to such an agreement. As for the west, he accepted that the faith of Rome set out in the Tome was what all should agree to but, like eodosius, he knew that the pope’s authority was not so universally recognized that a papal decree as to what the whole church should believe would automatically command obedience in the east. Much more important for the east was the acquiescence of the broader Cyrillian majority to the Roman stance, an impossibility if Cyril was understood in terms of the new formulae, but a demonstrated possibility if the east could be induced to accept the synodical Cyril. Marcian soon showed that he believed coming to the desired agreement required a great deal more than Rome envisaged: nothing less than the holding of an ecumenical council, one whose obligatory consensus vote would commit all of the bishops to faith ‘condemns and prosecutes equally both the Nestorian and the Eutychian depravity’ (Leo to the Council, ACO II, IV, pp. 51–52, tr. ACC I, p. 104). 7. Pulcheria tells Leo of Anatolius’ subscription to the Tome and of the translation of Flavian’s body to Constantinople (Pulcheria to Leo, ACO II, III, pp. 18–19). Leo tells Bishop Paschasinus that not only has Anatolius of Constantinople ‘with all the monasteries and many bishops’ subscribed to the Tome, but Maximus of Antioch and his bishops have also subscribed (Leo to Paschasinus, ACO II, IV, pp. 46–47, tr. ACC I, pp. 93– 94). 8. Perhaps the word should be ‘requiring’ rather than ‘acquiring’. e petition the archimandrites Carosus and Dorotheus et al. (loyalists to Ephesus II’s position) submitted to Marcian, taken up by Chalcedon in session 4, entreated the emperor ‘to put an end to faction, to the collecting of signatures by force, and to the harassment of ourselves practiced every day by the clergy …’, an evident reference to signatures to the Tome being acquired by violence from monastics. ACO II, I, 3, 76, p. 116, tr. ACC I, pp. 155–56.

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a single way of stating the faith, would serve the purpose.9 He was, of course, committed to having that council accept Leo’s christological language. As he wrote to Leo, he wanted the pope to pray God to remove error ‘through holding a council on [Leo’s] authority [so that] perfect peace should be established among all the bishops …’10 e bishops he directed to ‘declare by their own statements what may benefit the Christian religion and the catholic faith, as [Leo] has defined …’, that is, as Leo had defined them in the Tome.11 Let us consider the situation more broadly. In the east the proposed solution of the problem of Rome was not to be achieved without the greatest difficulty, if at all. Agreeing with Leo admittedly posed no problem for one constituency in the east, the Antiochenes, for whom Rome’s language of two natures aer the Incarnation was perfectly acceptable, but they were an élite and suspect minority. Not so for the great majority of eastern bishops. Looking back on this episode from Session 4 of Chalcedon, imperial officials, no doubt simplifying the situation drastically, interpreted a petition submitted by monks sympathetic with Dioscorus and Eutyches as being what sparked the decision to call an ecumenical council. In their petition the monks appealed to the emperor to call a council that would end ‘the collecting of signatures by force’, an obvious reference to Rome’s campaign to get subscriptions to the Tome. ey recognized that, for the east, the Tome was the major sticking point. Given the absolute centrality of Cyril in the long controversy in the east about the faith that we have been following, and the pride of place he had come to enjoy in their eyes as the authoritative interpreter of Nicaea and the faith of the fathers in his Second Letter to Nestorius, a place confirmed by Ephesus II, a perceptive observer would have recognized that any statement of faith agreed by the whole church would have somehow to convince the east that Leo’s way of stating things, so natural to the west, was in harmony with Cyril’s. By the time of Ephesus II, though, the view the majority of eastern bishops took of what constituted Cyrillian orthodoxy had evolved along with Cyril’s own evolution, and it was with this evolved Cyrillianism that Leo’s Tome would have to demonstrate its harmony. As he had 9. It will be remembered that Celestine and Cyril had issued an ultimatum to Nestorius that they considered sufficient, but eodosius concluded, probably correctly, that he needed nothing less than an ecumenical council if he was to have any chance of success. 10. Marcian to Leo, ACO II, III, p. 17, tr. ACC I, pp. 92–93. 11. Marcian to Leo, ACO II, III, p. 18, tr. ACC I, p. 93. ere is a question as to the meaning of the phrase ‘as [Leo] has defined’. e sequel would show that Marcian was not suggesting the other bishops should each produce a statement of his faith just as Leo had done, but rather that they should each agree to state the faith as Leo had defined it.

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shown, and would continue to show at Chalcedon, Dioscorus was a powerful and intelligent mouthpiece for this evolved Cyrillianism, willing to stand up for his faith to the end, and he was ably supported by others such as Eustathius of Berytus. On their interpretation there were indeed two natures before the Incarnation, but one incarnate nature aerwards, the new-formulae position. Dioscorus could also rely on popular support, perhaps especially from many monasteries, courted as they had been by Cyril himself. To labour the point, when Marcian issued sacra in May of 451 convoking an ecumenical council for the following September, the central challenge that loomed on the horizon was to convince the bishops of the east that the Tome, itself non-negotiable, was not incompatible with Cyril. at the council, initially planned for Nicaea, was moved to the less accessible Chalcedon showed that the court was aware of challenges: disruptions of the council were not only feared but expected, at least if monks on Dioscorus’ and Eutyches’ side got access to it. It would have been hard for any perceptive observer to be optimistic about the council’s chances.

F S Just how difficult it would be to achieve the kind of agreement Marcian and Leo had in mind was clear from the outset, and things did not improve as time went by. ose who now read only the Statement of Faith of Chalcedon may fail to notice, but anyone who reads the acts in their entirety, with their rich inclusion of materials from the Vorleben, cannot fail to recognize, that a carefully-planned agenda was being pursued by the imperial officials on their master’s behalf, but was constantly being resisted, and was frequently in peril of being knocked completely off the rails, by the eastern bishops. We cannot be certain how pessimistic – ‘realistic’ might be a better word – Marcian’s assessment of the challenge before him and his allies was at the outset. Rome’s sanguine sense of it certainly was not. As the council opened, she attempted to assert her position which, it will be remembered, was that she had already, on her own authority annulled Ephesus II, deposed Dioscorus and Eutyches, reinstated Eusebius of Dorylaeum, restored the memory of Flavian, and established orthodoxy as embodied in the Tome. She was convinced that she had secured substantial, as opposed to pro forma, agreement in this on the part of eastern bishops when she secured their subscriptions to the Tome. She did not see the need for an ecumenical council. From her point of view, once she realized, reluctantly, that the emperor was going to call a council despite her

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reservations, its task was to consolidate agreement on the faith enunciated by the Pope. It must do so by bringing it to a unanimous positive vote by the bishops, and a unanimous condemnation of Ephesus II and its leaders. at result would automatically enlist the emperor as its enforcer. When the council opened and the bishops were seated, the Roman legates made their first high-handed attempt to set the agenda: Dioscorus, they said, being already condemned, ‘should not take a seat at the assembly, and if he has the effrontery to attempt to do so, he should be expelled … either he must leave, or we shall leave.’12 at the emperor’s view of how their common goal was to be achieved was not the same became immediately clear: his officials, supervising the council, were determined that its first task was indeed getting the powerful Dioscorus out of the way, but they intended that his conviction be secured, not instantaneously by papal fiat – a fiat that would not be widely recognized in the east –, but, with better prospects of success, by increments and at the end of a legitimate legal process. Events would demonstrate this truth, but it was already hinted at by the officials’ insistence that the legates lay a specific charge against Dioscorus, setting in motion the legal process.13 A particularly lame (and factually inaccurate) attempt on the legates’ part to adapt to the imperial insistence on a charge was to claim that Dioscorus had convened Ephesus II illegally, that is, ‘without the leave of the apostolic see …’, as though that would be sufficient to condemn him.14 e officials took it to be a non-starter, and pressed on with their own agenda, convincing Dioscorus to take the role of the accused, seated in the middle, so that he could defend himself and due process seem to be done. e papal legates, failing to act on their threat, were le to quietly take their seats.15 e officials then entertained Eusebius’ petition on behalf of himself and Flavian, and that, no doubt as planned at the highest levels, set the council firmly on their chosen path. ey must have realized the great difficulties that lay ahead, especially if the game plan was not followed. Also illuminating was the spat over the seating of eodoret that took place early in the first session, right aer the reading of Eusebius’ petition.16 Here we have the case of one of Marcian’ and Rome’s allies taking the council off-script, with potentially dangerous results. Rome openly supported eodoret, until that point Cyril’s most articulate enemy among 12. ACO II, I, 5, p. 129, tr. ACC I, p. 129. 13. ere were three such insistences: ACO II, I, 6, 8, and 11, pp. 65–66. 14. ACO II, I, 9, p. 65, tr. ACC I, p. 129. On the inaccuracy of their charge, see ACC I, p. 129, n. 54. 15. ACO II, I, 13, p. 66, accepting the argument of ACC I, p. 130, n. 5 that the direction about taking that seat was intended for Dioscorus, not the legates. 16. ACO II, I, 26–46, pp. 69–71.

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the Antiochenes. Reinstated by Leo, eodoret could plausibly be thought by westerners and Antiochenes to be entitled to participate in the council, and the officials (at the emperor’s explicit insistence) were willing to support the attempt to seat him among the bishops, in the evident but ill-judged expectation that success on this might be useful in soening up the resistance later.17 As it turned out, the attempt to reinstate eodoret was quite possibly a fatal tipping-point. When eodoret was invited to take a seat, though, the reaction of many bishops, especially of course the phalanx of bishops representing Egypt, Illyricum, and Palestine, was outrage. To them, eodoret’s acceptance by the council meant nothing less than the rejection of Cyril: ‘Why is Cyril being cast out, who was anathematized by this man?’18 is exposed the key problem facing the planners of the council: how could Cyrillians, Romans, and Antiochenes be accommodated within a single statement of faith? e session quickly degenerated into a shouting match between those who wanted eodoret expelled, and those who demanded Dioscorus be driven out, and an outbreak of physical violence, with the possibility it might turn into outright schism, seemed in the offing.19 is was precisely the opposite of what the emperor and his agents wanted to see happen. eodoret himself did not help matters. Apparently confident of imperial and Roman backing, he threw fuel on the fire by demanding that his petition seeking redress for ‘attacks of which [he had] been the victim’ be dealt with immediately.20 e officials evidently recognized that many bishops were far from ready to accept eodoret’s orthodoxy, let alone grant him compensation. ey realized it would be a tactical error of major proportions to let responding to his contentious petition become the business of the first session rather than responding to Eusebius of Dorylaeum’s well-planned one, or to attempt to insist at this point that he be seated as a bishop in good standing, thereby making suspicions as to his orthodoxy and certainty as to his disagreement with Cyril the focus of attention, and beat a hasty retreat. Again they called for a return to the stated agenda: ‘Lest the [present] hearing be disrupted,’ they ruled, ‘let us conclude what we have initiated.’21 eodoret was seated, but as an accuser, not as a judge, a compromise intended to mollify Dioscorus’ faction. He was seated, however, to the accompaniment of vociferous demands that he be expelled, countered by demands from his allies that Dioscorus be expelled; the 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

ACO II, I, 26, p. 69, cf. ACO II, I, 35, p. 70, where their support is modified. ACO II, I, 29, p. 69, tr. ACC I, p. 134. ACO II, I, 27–33, p. 69. ACO II, I, 34, p. 69, tr. ACC I, p. 135. ACO II, I, 35, p. 70, tr. ACC I, p. 135.

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council continued to be dangerously on the brink.22 eodoret’s case, raising hackles as it did, was put off until other challenges had been met, and such bishops as remained at the council had been manoeuvred into a more compliant position, an outcome that, if it could ever be said to have been achieved, would not be achieved nearly so quickly or so easily as some, especially among the Romans, hoped and expected.23 From its very outset, then, as these episodes made abundantly clear, every advance made by either side would be hotly contested, and the hoped-for agreement of the entire church on anything, let alone on that most contentious of entities, a statement of faith, was, in a word, elusive.

E C  C  A Still, complete pessimism as to Chalcedon’s chances of success would not have seemed justified. ere was one encouraging consideration: Ephesus II had come close to achieving the same goal, albeit for the opposite cause, and it had done so by constituting itself a court of appeal against the condemnation of Eutyches by the Home Synod of 448, which it claimed was an instance of corrupt prosecution. Why would the same strategy not prove equally effective in the opposing cause, especially in the hands of a less restrained emperor than eodosius had been? ose who dismiss Ephesus II out of hand as an heretical and illegitimate council achieving its positive outcome only through brutal means fail to notice how Chalcedon’s highly-praised modus operandi mirrored that of Ephesus II. Chalcedon, accordingly, was constituted first and foremost as a court of appeal. It responded to Eusebius of Dorylaeum’s petitions on his own and the ‘martyred’ Flavian’s behalf against corrupt prosecution. It was of course within Marcian’s gi as emperor to rule on a petition and, if he judged it had merit, to forward it for action to the appropriate body, accompanied by a letter of direction. In a case like this he quite properly was forwarding his letter of direction to a council of the church. An ecumenical council was, furthermore, the only appropriate body to deal with the issues at hand. Only an ecumenical council, aer all, could deal with a matter of faith involving the whole church, and reverse the decisions of a previous council that itself had a claim to being ecumenical. Only a 22. is rather lengthy episode, mostly made up of hostile acclamations, is found in ACO II, I, 26–46, pp. 69–70. e designation of eodoret as an accuser is found in ACO II, I, 35, p. 70, confirmed by ACO II, I, 194, p. 97. 23. e status of eodoret was not resolved until the seventh session, some eighteen days and six momentous sessions later.

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council of bishops could deliver a judgement against other bishops. Finally, only an ecumenical council could articulate a statement of faith for the whole church. Moreover, Flavian, handily martyred, and with his memory now rehabilitated by Leo, made an admirable victim of corrupt prosecution. e way ahead, if Chalcedon was to apply the lessons of Ephesus II, thus seemed relatively straightforward: begin with an appeal; have the emperor issue a letter of direction indicating how it is to be dealt with; where, as here, a person’s orthodoxy is at issue, determine what orthodoxy is so that the accused’s orthodoxy may be judged by comparison with it; examine the evidence to determine whether a miscarriage of justice has in fact taken place; render a judgement; determine a sentence. It was a logical way to proceed, one not unlike the practice of law courts to this day. It was in fact precisely this pattern that was followed by Chalcedon for the five sessions with which it began – with one difference. e difference is important, showing as it does the difficulties faced by those directing the council and the strategies they were driven to, given that they were expected to bring the council to an agreed statement of faith in the face of profound disagreement between the parties over how to state the faith. is is that one important difference: whereas Ephesus II defined the orthodox faith first, and then examined the evidence of the minutes of the Home Synod to establish whether Eutyches had been condemned for heterodoxy justly or not – a logical way to proceed –, at Chalcedon the discussion of the faith followed the examination of the evidence. e hoped-for agreement on the faith was to be arrived at as the end result of other proceedings, carefully directed, not assumed at the beginning. is made complete sense, the debacle of Ephesus I having shown how difficult it was to bring the sides to agreement. e changed order would allow time and space to manoeuver the sides, it was hoped, into agreement. Let there be no doubt that the change in order was intentional: as soon as the bishops were seated and stopped chattering with one another, and aer the very brief attempt by the papal legates to divert the council from the planned agenda noted above,24 Eusebius, the agent in large part of the imperial officials who were running the council, leapt to his feet to demand, not, we repeat, that the faith be established so that his prosecutors’ heterodoxy could be demonstrated, but rather that his petition be read ‘[b]y the preservation of the masters of the world’, i.e., by imperial order. is demand the officials of course immediately granted, something they would not have done had there not been a previous understanding as to how things were to proceed.25 e petition was read, and 24. ACO II, I, 5–13, pp. 65–66. 25. ACO II, I, 14–15, p. 66, tr. ACC I, pp. 130–31.

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the officials immediately and single-mindedly insisted that the vaguely worded ‘these charges’ be dealt with, leaving no opening for anyone even to suggest a different order.26 A statement of faith clearly was not to be discussed yet. If there were any doubt on that point, how Dioscorus was dealt with confirms the analysis. Confident that Ephesus II had been a legitimate council and that its minutes would so prove, he at first joined in asking the council to deal with the charges laid against him without delay, and asked that the minutes of Ephesus II be read, not imitating the order followed by Ephesus II. When his accuser Eusebius instantly added that he too wanted them read immediately, and the officials prepared to begin that lengthy process, Dioscorus apparently sensed that he had made a tactical error, for he attempted to backtrack. Now he wanted a different order: ‘I ask your magnificence that the matters of faith be examined first.’27 ere was no chance whatsoever of that, as was made perfectly clear by the brusque response he received: ‘What is required immediately is for you to answer the accusations. Wait now while the acts are read, as you yourself have requested.’28 It could not be clearer that the directors of the council had decided ahead of time, for the reasons adduced, that the discussion of the faith was not, as at Ephesus II, to take place at this point, but later and separately. Dioscorus was trapped, as had doubtless been intended: there would be no chance to defend himself or discomfit his enemies in an open discussion about the true faith before he was condemned on other charges altogether. e discussion of what constituted the orthodox faith did certainly take place, but only aer it had been assured that he, Dioscorus, would not be part of it. Getting Dioscorus out of the way was apparently what ‘these charges’ that were to be dealt with immediately were about. At this early stage, it made no sense to stir up a hornet’s nest by attempting to wring from opposing parties a single statement of faith. What did make sense – and what in fact was done – was to begin with such issues as would enable the building up of the case for the eventual capitulation of a majority to sidelining the new-formulae letters’ version of Cyril, and to subscribing to the desired Rome-derived statement of faith. e challenge was to find and exploit those issues most likely to bring resistant bishops to the point. A court of appeal against Ephesus II and its leaders opened up the possibility of achieving several tactical objectives towards this end. It would bring back into play the supremely important case 26. ACO II, I, 17, p. 67. 27. ACO II, I, 18–21, p. 67, tr. ACC I, p. 132. 28. ACO II, I, 22, p. 67, tr. ACC I, p. 132.

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made by the Home Synod of 448 against the new-formulae Cyrillian language that was the essential impediment to reconciliation, and promote a Flavian and Home-Synod version of Cyril that Rome and Antiochenes could live with. It would show how the high-handed Dioscorus had le himself open to plausibly being discredited on other than doctrinal grounds, and that would, among other things, indirectly cast some additional doubt on the validity of the version of the faith he championed. It would deploy the memory of Flavian as an innocent and orthodox victim of Ephesus II, and he would bring with his rehabilitation renewed respectability for the way he enunciated the faith, especially on claimed evidence that it, and he, were in perfect harmony with the real Cyril on that score. Only when there had been progress on these fronts, and the tide of feeling was running against Dioscorus (and, by association, what he stood for) and in favour of Flavian (and, by association, what he stood for) would it be thought tactically advantageous to broach the subject of a new statement of faith. In the meantime, it made complete sense to hold that discussion back. Whereas Ephesus II had established Eutyches’ innocence and Flavian’s guilt on the basis of an agreed statement of faith, Chalcedon could do the reverse: it could establish, or go some way to establishing, an agreed statement of faith on the evidence of Flavian’s innocence, and Eutyches’ guilt. At the opening session this very strategy is seen in action. Matters touching on faith were not totally ignored, in fact were debated by the by, but there was never a suggestion that here, as at Ephesus II, a statement of faith was assumed. It was always a case of reaching an opinion about the principals in the light of which their faith statements could be judged. In the end Dioscorus was condemned and sentenced on completely other grounds than the faith.

S I: R E II Until Eutyches and Dioscorus – and with them a council (Ephesus II) that had good reason to be considered ecumenical and authoritative – were discredited, serious progress towards establishing a statement of faith amenable to Rome was impossible. e vehicle for doing so was the appeals process, and that involved reviewing the acts of Ephesus II and, embedded within them, some of the acts of the Home Synod of 448 and of Ephesus I, to prove corrupt prosecution. Eusebius’ petition set the direction to be followed: Dioscorus’ trial and condemnation of Flavian at Ephesus II were to be construed as being motivated by the supposed fact that he ‘shar[ed] the doctrines and views of the vain and heretical

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Eutyches’. e trick here was to talk as though everyone already knew and agreed on two things: that there in fact existed such a thing as the ‘heresy of the monk Eutyches’, and that it ‘had previously and from the first been condemned by the holy fathers’. One could thus ‘prove’ from the acts of Ephesus II that Dioscorus, in exonerating Eutyches, had knowingly ‘given his support to heresy steeped in impiety’.29 Note that, while there is a good deal of rhetorical finger-pointing going on here, nothing specific is actually said either about Eutyches’ ‘heresy’ or about what Dioscorus believed, for two very good reasons. For one thing, identifying Eutyches’ heresy would have run the risk of exposing a dangerous reality: both men actually believed very much as Cyril had come to believe in the letters he wrote in response to the attacks of Nestorians on him and John of Antioch over the Union of 433, but no overt rejection of Cyril stood the remotest chance of being entertained at this critical juncture, when what imperial policy required was a rapprochement, or the appearance of one, between Cyril and Leo; in the second place, the notion of a freestanding heresy called ‘Eutychianism’ had no basis in fact. It had not until now existed anywhere except in the clumsy and misleading caricature contained in Leo’s Tome. It had been condemned, not by ‘the holy fathers’ at large as Eusebius claimed, but by Leo alone, and at that only a few months previously. Certainly the notional reality of Eutychianism began to find its way into the minds of bishops of the west, Constantinople, and Antioch who had succumbed to the Roman campaign to get subscriptions to the Tome. e tarring of Eutyches with the brush of heresy by this means lent apparent substance to suspicions about Dioscorus’ orthodoxy. He could be said to be tainted by Eutychianism, since he had championed Eutyches’ cause, without being more precise. Suspicions were especially easy to arouse about the latter’s position because what he said during his trial, or rather was reported to have said, was so vulnerable to misinterpretation, especially if the relevant acts had, as we have seen reason to suspect and as his advocates had argued in hearings, been altered by Flavian’s notaries in such a way as to conceal Eutyches’ several attempts to get incontrovertibly orthodox teaching on record as his.30 He had failed in every attempt to have his actual teachings put on record. In short, for the imperial strategy to be effective, Eutyches’ and Dioscorus’ real positions had to be suppressed so that they could be tarred with the brush of a phantom ‘Eutychianism’. It should be remembered, too, that Chalcedon heard Eusebius’ negative caricature of Eutyches at the beginning of the 29. ACO II, I, 16, pp. 66–67, tr. ACC I, pp. 131–32. 30. See the discussion in Chapter 10.

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day, that it was reinforced over the course of the day, and that the corrections Eutyches’ advocates proposed to the official minutes were heard only late in the day, embedded in the tedious minutes of a hearing. While perhaps convincing to those who took the time to weigh them, these corrections stood little chance at the time of blotting out the contrary impression planted by Eusebius and the papal legates earlier in the day. We can see the deployment of the prosecution’s rhetorical strategy using Eutyches’ supposedly long-established heterodoxy, for instance, at the point in the reading of the minutes of the Home Synod at which bishops sympathetic to Flavian were trying to establish the appropriateness of amplifying the creed, as Rome desired, over against Eutyches’ plaint insisting that Ephesus I proscribed any addition. e Egyptian bishops demanded that Chalcedon confirm that proscription, to which the Oriental bishops rejoined, positing the assumption that anything Eutyches approved must be heterodox and therefore to be dismissed, ‘Eutyches said that’ (or perhaps one should modify the translation to capture the intended sarcasm more accurately, saying ‘But that’s what Eutyches said’).31 Eutyches’ position was never so easily misrepresented as over the suspicion that he believed ‘the flesh of our Lord God Jesus Christ came down from heaven’, a position there is no sound evidence he ever held. Still, all he could do was deny holding it, and denial is oen and easily taken to be proof of guilt. at seems to be exactly what happened in this case, as various bishops on the Eusebian side quickly joined in, saying they had failed to get a clear answer from Eutyches on this strange doctrine. It was a classic case of the entirely fatuous truism, ‘Where there’s smoke there’s fire.’32 Where there is smoke, actually, there is oen just someone attempting to get people to believe there is fire. Still, so successful was the strategy that this doctrine has been associated with Eutyches’ name down through centuries of heresiological tradition. Dioscorus certainly recognized the force of the oblique attack on himself that tarred him by association with Eutyches’ suspected heterodoxy. He made a crucial decision: he disassociated himself from Eutyches in an attempt to escape the taint, even admitting, however faintly, the possibility that Eutyches was not in fact orthodox: ‘If Eutyches holds opinions contrary to the doctrines of the church’, he asserted, ‘he deserves not only punishment but hell fire. For my concern is for the catholic and apostolic faith and not for any human 31. ACO II, I, 161–62, p. 91. is is the first instance of many dismissals of opponents on the simple grounds that ‘Eutyches said that.’ It would soon be joined by ‘Dioscorus said that.’ Tarring an opponent with the brush of another’s (real or supposed) heresy has always been an effective weapon of theological debate. 32. ACO II, I, 359, p. 124.

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being.’33 It was a momentous decision for the history of doctrine, for it le in its wake the deceptive notion of a freestanding Eutychian heresy that maintained bizarre doctrines, and its corollary, that Dioscorus, having supported Eutyches, had been tainted by his heresy before he disowned it. Among later Chalcedonians, Dioscorus would continue to be suspect on these grounds. Negative repercussions were not confined to the Chalcedonian side, either. anks to Dioscorus’ hesitation over Eutyches’ orthodoxy, Eutychianism’s existence came to be admitted even by his antiChalcedonian successors as well. ey always found themselves in a difficult position when defending their hero Dioscorus’ role in this episode, having like him to disown Eutyches for supposed Eutychianism, while defending, as we from our vantage point finally recognize, what he actually believed. By the same token, their Chalcedonian opponents found in the supposed need to suppress ‘Eutychianism’ a handy justification for including in Chalcedon’s statement of faith a powerful assertion of two natures aer the incarnation in order to exclude Eutyches’ supposed brand of Cyrillian faith. at was bound to please Rome. We begin, too, to catch more than a whiff of a later corollary of the invention of Eutychianism: that what was beginning to take shape as the intended Chalcedonian position represented not, as was actually the case, the more Antiochenefriendly, Tome-inspired end of the spectrum of christological beliefs, but the golden mean between the symmetrically-opposed heresies of Nestorianism and Eutychianism, one at each doctrinal extremity. Significantly, when Basil of Seleucia at one point claimed the middle ground for the Eusebian side – ‘[A]nathema to those who separate … Anathema also to those who do not recognize the distinctive properties of the natures’ – the Antiochene bishops almost immediately shouted, not as we would have expected ‘Anathema to Eutyches’, but ‘Anathema to Nestorius and Eutyches’.34 If they were to represent themselves as the moderate middle ground, they had clearly seen, Dioscorus, with the supposedly Eutychian faith he represented, automatically had to be repositioned rhetorically at one of the two dangerous extremes they so wisely were avoiding. I  V D Narratives about Dioscorus’ relation to Eutychianism were not the only deceptive narratives about him and Ephesus II floated at Chalcedon. It will have seemed shocking to many readers that, in our discussion of 33. ACO II, I, 168, p. 92. 34. ACO II, I, 172–74, p. 95, tr. ACC I, p. 160.

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Ephesus II, we made no mention of the familiar narrative attributing all sorts of violent acts to the so-called Latrocinium (Pope Leo’s ‘den of thieves’) and laying the responsibility at Dioscorus’ door.35 at is because this narrative belongs, not to 449, but to 451. It is Chalcedon’s child. e supposed violence of Ephesus II is entirely or largely an invention created to serve the imperial agenda at Chalcedon in 451 rather than the cause of historical truth, and that is why we deal with it here, rather than in our discussion of Ephesus II. e evidence seems never to have been dispassionately explored. In the first place, much of the supposed evidence for violent acts committed by or on behalf of Dioscorus does not, on close examination, attest to violent acts at all, but to the threat and the fear of violent acts. Eusebius of Dorylaeum, whose petition set the stage for the whole first session of Chalcedon, accuses Dioscorus of ‘[g]athering a huge and disorderly mob and using money to procure power …’ and of doing ‘terrible things to us’.36 Intimidation is indicated, perhaps bribery, but if the ‘terrible things’ Dioscorus did included actual physical violence, it is inexplicable that Eusebius should not mention that fact explicitly. en there is the complaint of Basil of Seleucia about what happened when he made one of his various attempts to justify a shi to whichever side was winning at the time: en all the Egyptians and the monks accompanying Barsaumas and the whole crowd rose up and began saying ‘He who says two natures should be cut in two.’ at cry must have been alarming to hear, but again, are we talking about anything more than a lot of shouting and a sense of being under threat? at we are talking about nothing more than noise and shouting is actually confirmed by Basil himself when he goes on to describe what happened in response to something else he said: ‘there was such an uproar from them that we were shaken in our souls …’37 Much later in the session, understandably desperate to avert the charge that he had at Ephesus II anathematized those who spoke of two natures aer the union, Basil explained his actions: ‘[a]rmed soldiers burst into the church, and there were arrayed Barsaumas and his monks, parabolani, and a great miscellaneous mob…’ but ‘[Dioscorus] drove us to such a murderous crime by means of the threats of the mob aer the deposition of the blessed Flavian.’38 Notice: Basil explicitly admits here that what he succumbed to was threats. He does not attest to actual violence. e clincher is the fact that the bishops later recanted on the claim: they begged for 35. 36. 37. 38.

Pope Leo, Letter to Pulcheria, ACO II, IV, pp. 50–51. ACO II, I, 16, pp. 66–67, tr. ACC I, pp. 131–32. ACO II, I, 176, p. 93, tr. ACC I, p. 160. ACO II, I, 851–53, p. 179, tr. ACC I, pp. 269–70.

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forgiveness for having ‘declared earlier that [they] were forced by violence and compulsion to sign the deposition of Flavian … on a blank sheet.’39 e fact is that the only witnesses claiming that Dioscorus was guilty of violent acts, and not just threats, were the bishops identified, with the precision that marked Chalcedon’s minutes, as representing ‘the Orient, Pontus, Asia, and race’.40 ese bishops sat together as a bloc alongside the representatives of Rome and the Patriarch Anatolius, shouted their acclamations together, and voted together, just as we might expect: they were bishops from constituencies that had favoured the Flavian agenda, and what they were engaged in now was a development of that agenda. So consistently did they vote as a bloc that the notaries quickly came to identify them simply as ‘the most devout Oriental bishops and those with them …’ 41 ese bishops, we repeat, were the only witnesses to claim that actual physical violence had been done to them, and they made that charge at the earliest possible moment, perhaps with the idea that their claim would colour others’ accounts with the taint of actual violence: they had, they said, ‘signed blank sheets … [ey] suffered blows and … signed.’ 42 Against Dioscorus’ claim at Chalcedon that the whole of Ephesus II had legitimately reached its judgements as an ecumenical council, the same bloc of bishops protested, again, that ‘force was used, force with blows’, so that they had been compelled to sign blank ballots that Dioscorus’ agents could fill in.43 Stephen, metropolitan of Ephesus, though the record showed him to have been an eager participant in Ephesus II’s decisions, joined these other Asian bishops with, among other things, a colourful account of the kind of blows allegedly inflicted on Dioscorus’ orders: his Egyptian notaries had erased Stephen’s notaries’ tablets, almost breaking their fingers as they snatched their pens from them.44 It is possible that this bloc of bishops, traditional enemies of what Dioscorus and Eutyches stood for, were treated more aggressively than others. What is interesting, though, is the fact that, even for them, the real point seems always to be that they were threatened, and were ‘intimidated into signing’. ere is no reason to take as factual their rhetoric blackening the reputation of Ephesus II holus bolus.45 We have no reason, in fact, not to 39. ACO II, I, 181–82, p. 161. 40. ACO II, I, 4, p. 65. 41. Sitting together: ACO II, I, 28, p. 69, tr. ACC I, p. 134; their designation: e.g. ACO II, I, 182, p. 94. 42. ACO II, I, 54, p. 75, tr. ACC I, p. 141. e blank sheets involved here are the ballots of the vote to depose Flavian: ACO II, I, 182, p. 94. 43. ACO II, I, 130, pp. 87–88. 44. ACO II, I, 54, p. 75. 45. How seriously, then, can we take charges of violence laid by only a single bloc of bishops, when that bloc represented just those bishops who had fought for more than two

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accept that the majority of the bishops voted as they did quite freely, agreeing with Dioscorus both as to the injustice visited upon Eutyches by Flavian’s rigged synod, and as to the nature of the faith that was at stake. As we shall see, these same bishops, though they wavered as to Dioscorus personally, and for some considerable time were easily convinced that Eutyches harboured some strange ideas, continued at Chalcedon to uphold the version of the faith championed by Ephesus II, and did so in the face of very considerable pressure from imperial officials to abandon it. It makes no sense at all to suppose that the very bishops who felt so strongly in favour of the faith of Ephesus II in 451 that they persisted in risking imperial wrath for maintaining it had accepted that faith only against their will and under the threat of Dioscorus’ violence just two years earlier. Of course not. What their intransigence at Chalcedon showed, in fact, was how seriously they had been committed to the faith of Ephesus II in 449, and how seriously they remained committed to it even in the drastically altered climate of 451, to the chagrin of Marcian and his ecclesiastical allies. ere is one bit of additional evidence supporting the same conclusion. Dioscorus pointed out that those who had excused themselves for having voted with him at Ephesus II on the grounds that they feared violence were condemning themselves: they were essentially admitting they had shamefully betrayed the faith out of cowardice. When they tried to evade that charge by saying instead that they had erred sinfully by participating in a corrupt vote, and were seeking forgiveness – thereby making their vote something they had freely chosen, not something they had been forced to do, for had they been forced they would not have committed any sin – even the imperial officials saw the inconsistency. Had these bishops not ‘declared earlier that [they] were forced by violence and compulsion to sign the deposition ...?’ they asked.46 In other words, these bishops revealed that their charge of violence was just a handy fiction that could be conjured up when it was useful, and abandoned when it was not. Quite plausibly the only real physical casualties of Ephesus II were the fingers of the Ephesian notaries, nearly broken – nearly, not actually –, not because the parabolani intended to break them, but accidentally, in a tussle over writing tablets. Ephesus II, whatever Leo said, was no latrocinium. Being made out to have been a latrocinium added decades, by open opposition and by what we might charitably call at the very least misrepresentation, against the brand of Cyrillian orthodoxy Dioscorus and his allies represented? Should we not be unsurprised that they were determined to bring him and his council down, and were prepared to do so by fair means or foul? 46. ACO II, I, 179–82, p. 94.

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additional rhetorical evidence to the multi-faceted case being built against Dioscorus at the time, and has clouded judgements about him ever since. Another charge made against Ephesus II was of a type reverted to by lawyers innumerable over the centuries, the charge of legal irregularity. e issue was that Dioscorus had failed to call Eutyches’ actual accuser, Eusebius, to appear at Ephesus II, and had instead focused entirely on Flavian, putatively the judge in the case rather than the accuser. is was arguably a departure from standard practice. at Dioscorus acted on eodosius’ orders, mediated through Count Helpidius, was dismissed as a poor excuse.47 Despite its brief appearance in the minutes of Act I, and in our treatment of it here, this charge was one of the more successful when it came time to judge and sentence Dioscorus. Participants in Chalcedon who had not been at Ephesus II found themselves all too ready to think of Dioscorus as an ecclesiastical thug, to dismiss what he stood for as the ravings of a thug and heretic, and Ephesus II as a latrocinium. ey all too uncritically accepted the fiction of a free-standing heresy called Eutychianism in the same cause, supposing that Chalcedon was called to quell this new heresy, and that Ephesus II’s principals, Eutyches and Dioscorus, were tainted by it. e evidence does not warrant this. What Eutyches, Dioscorus, and Ephesus II actually represented, we repeat, was not a new heresy, but one version of Cyrillian orthodoxy, a version which, certainly, was verbally incompatible with Rome’s way of expressing christology exemplified by the Tome, but which had a respectable pedigree going back to Cyril’s own letters in response to Nestorian attacks. ey had reason to claim the mantle of Cyril was legitimately theirs. Marcian’s agenda, if it was to be achieved, would have to overcome that simple fact, and there was no better forum for the purpose than the opening sessions of Chalcedon.

F, C,   H S e opening session of Chalcedon, dealing as it did with minutes of the Home Synod and Ephesus II, bore the heavy burden of bringing Marcian’s vision of a united church into reality in the face of the eastern church’s almost universal conviction that Cyril was the key to orthodoxy. Its first task, as we have seen, was negative: to discredit Dioscorus and Ephesus II, and in the process to rule out their new-formulae language, without overtly denying Cyril. Only so could peace between Rome and 47. ACO II, I, 187–96, pp. 96–97. See also 236, p. 102, where the issue is summarized.

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the eastern church be established. at was only the beginning, essential of course, but not the crucial and most difficult step. at was the council’s second task: to establish agreement within the eastern church on christological language compatible with Rome’s that at the same time rang true to Cyrillians. at feat had so far been achieved only briefly by the Home Synod of 448. It had done so by means of Flavian’ and Eusebius’ claim that two-natures-aer-the-union teaching, since it appeared in the two letters styled ‘synodical’, was the legitimate wearer of the mantle of Cyril. It is no surprise that the same tactic was now attempted at Chalcedon. If it was successful, Chalcedon’s third task would be to incorporate the agreed language into a creed that could be accepted by all. Flavian had earlier relied on Cyril’s widely acknowledged authority to suppress those of his followers who had embraced the new formulae.48 Of course, since the acts of the Home Synod were very much in play, being embedded in the acts of Ephesus II that were currently under investigation, it was not difficult to focus Chalcedon’s attention on Flavian, and to turn him to good effect. His status was promisingly open to interpretation. For one thing, thanks to his use of Nestorius’ protective-colouration strategy, he could be an Antiochene in reality and serve the Antiochene cause yet, being on record for his condemnation of Nestorius, present the appearance of being in harmony with Cyril. e strategy worked just as Nestorius intended it should.49 Condemned and deposed by Ephesus II, Flavian had been rehabilitated posthumously as part of Leo’s initiative. e key debate about him at the opening session of Chalcedon, set off by the reading of the ‘synodical’ letters in the acts of the Home Synod, began with a seeming free-for-all in which everyone claimed to be Cyrillian. It was only a seeming free-for-all; that the next bit went off like clockwork shows that what happened was carefully orchestrated to set out a vision of how bishops of the eastern church from across the spectrum were supposedly united under the mantle of Cyril. e Illyrian bishops, unsurprisingly for allies of Dioscorus, then burst out with, ‘We believe as Cyril did.’50 eodoret, of all people, though he apparently could not quite bring 48. e word ‘synodical’ claimed for these letters special status. Cyril’s Second Letter to Nestorius legitimately could be called synodical, since it had been adopted by Ephesus I (Cyril’s Council), but the same cannot be said for his Letter to John of Antioch, which never received any such approval, and which, moreover, was written by someone in Antiochene circles, not by Cyril. e most that can be said was that he counter-signed it along with John of Antioch. 49. e fight occupied ACO II, I, 247–60, pp. 111–12. Flavian was the only figure whom we know to have been identified as a practitioner of Nestorius’ strategy by Nestorius himself. 50. ACO II, I, 247, p. 111, tr. ACC I, p. 183.

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himself to say that he too believed as Cyril did, affirmed that he and his fellow Antiochenes did not believe there were two Sons, at least admitting that, on this score, he disbelieved what Cyril disbelieved.51 Everyone then joined in the acclamation, ‘We believe as Cyril did’. It was at this point that the bloc of bishops from the Orient and their allies chimed in with the key to maintaining their unity, the fact that they all believed as the sainted Flavian did. ‘Flavian believed this,’ they claimed, ‘Flavian defended this; for this Flavian was deposed’. By ‘this’, of course, they meant their Flavian version of what Cyril stood for. And, they added – employing Nestorius’ protective-colouration strategy –, ‘Eusebius [Flavian’s agent at the Home Synod and plaintiff on his behalf at Chalcedon] condemned Nestorius’, with the implication that he and Flavian could therefore both be assumed to be orthodox in a Cyrillian sense. e claim spread out from its centre in Flavian, as the theme of a unifying vision re-emerged: ‘Leo believes this … Anatolius holds this’, they said. en came the final piece of the picture they were painting: ‘e emperor and the senate and everyone holds this … We all hold this.’52 As with the demonization of Eutyches, so here the beatification of Flavian built on what Leo and his allies had begun. ey had restored Flavian’s memory, and now they could appeal, as if it were an agreed fact, to his supposed status as a ‘martyr’ for orthodoxy, Cyrillian orthodoxy, that is – as they construed it. Repetition of positive ‘facts’ about Flavian made those ‘facts’ seem all the more indisputable, just as the repetition of negative ‘facts’ about Eutyches had made them seem indisputable. e pieces of the Flavian strategy came together in a single challenge posed by the officials to Dioscorus: ‘Why did you receive Eutyches into communion, who contradicted these doctrines [of the two ‘synodical’ letters], while deposing Flavian of holy memory and the most devout Bishop Eusebius, who upheld them?’53 Why had Dioscorus, by embracing Eutyches and attacking Flavian, opposed the teachings of Cyril? It was at exactly this point that the two options between which Chalcedon had to choose were laid bare. Dioscorus, knowing what was coming next in the minutes being read, remarked, ‘e minutes will reveal the truth.’54 What was coming next was the crucially important intervention of Eustathius at Ephesus II. In it, we recall, he made the opposite case to Flavian’s: he argued that the ‘synodical letters’, rather than being the key 51. ACO II, I, 248, p. 111. eodoret says ‘we’, rather than ‘I’, presumably indicating his friends, the cadre of Antiochene bishops. 52. ACO II, I, 249–55, p. 111, tr. ACC I, p. 183. 53. ACO II, I, 259, p. 112, tr. ACC I, p. 184. 54. ACO II, I, 260, p. 112, tr. ACC I, p. 184.

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to a proper understanding of Cyril, themselves required interpretation, interpretation Cyril himself had authoritatively provided in the newformulae letters. ese letters, not the former, were the real key to a proper understanding of Cyril. ey were what revealed who really could claim the mantle of Cyril. ey ‘state among other things’, Eustathius said, that ‘[o]ne should not conceive of two natures but of one incarnate nature of the Word [aer the Incarnation].’55 e prosecution at Chalcedon was also well prepared for this moment, and their response was instantaneous and predictable. Eustathius’ words were shouted down with the rhetorical weapons that had been a-building earlier in the session: ‘Eutyches says this. Dioscorus says this.’ (By this time ‘at’s what Eutyches says’ or ‘at’s what Dioscorus says’ were becoming reproaches). At this point things were, we may suspect, on a knife-edge. e various strategies employed so far by the prosecution had no doubt had their effect, but pointing to Eustathius’ argument brought into the open the key obstacle in the way of agreement between Rome and the eastern bishops, and the key hermeneutical question: which letters of Cyril represented his authentic teaching? Which view could claim the true mantle of Cyril? Eustathius had made a cogent case for the new-formulae letters, but the officials at Chalcedon tipped the balance against him with a well timed and carefully worded demand. e bishops, they insisted, faced a choice they could not avoid: ‘Let the holy council say whether the declaration of Eustathius the most devout bishop is in harmony with the canonical letters of Cyril of sacred memory which were published at the council and have just now been read.’56 Apart from the presumably intentional skewing of a key historical fact – the Second Letter to Nestorius was indeed published by Ephesus I in 431, but Laetentur coeli, written two years later in 433, manifestly could not have been published by Ephesus I, let alone been given its conciliar imprimatur! – the seeming choice the bishops were being offered was really a clear directive. ey were to decide, not which letters were the authoritative key – that the ‘synodical’ letters were the key was a given – but whether Eustathius’ one-nature position, based on the newformulae letters, met the authoritative standard of the ‘synodical’ letters or not. A negative answer was, of course, what was wanted, and if that was the answer, then Eustathius’ version of Cyril was denied his mantle. It belonged rather to those whose Cyril spoke of two natures aer the Incarnation in the ‘canonical’ letters. If that was granted, the second goal of imperial strategy was achieved. 55. ACO II, I, 260–61, p. 112, tr. ACC I, p. 184. 56. ACO II, I, 267, p. 113, tr. ACC I, pp. 185–86.

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e battle was not quite over. ere followed another extraordinary intervention by Eustathius, this one in the new setting of Chalcedon. Before the bishops of Chalcedon could respond to the officials’ demand for a decision, he strode to the centre, threw down a copy of Cyril’s Letter to Acacius, and recited it from memory, a considerable feat; he then invited anyone who anathematized the letter to anathematize him along with it, something no one would of course dare to do because of Cyril’s status. (We are reminded that, when it came to the sacred words of Cyril, bishops of all stripes dared not anathematize them openly, and someone like Eutyches was ready to take his last stand on his refusal to do so). He included even the most problematic sentence of Cyril, ‘One should therefore not conceive of two natures, but of one incarnate nature of the Word’, certainly not something that could easily be reconciled with the ‘synodical’ letters, or with Flavian’s definition of orthodoxy at the Home Synod, or with the Tome.57 Nonetheless, Eustathius immediately declared that he wanted, surprisingly, to ‘speak on behalf of the blessed Flavian: the blessed Flavian took precisely these words and sent them to the most pious emperor.’58 What Eustathius had to be referring to was Flavian’s qualification, in a letter dated late in 448 when opposition was mounting to the Home Synod’s activity, of his two-natures stand. In words loosely taken from Cyril, Flavian wrote: ‘We do not refuse to affirm one nature of God the Word enfleshed and incarnate …’59 It was a courageous last stand in favour of the new-formulae Cyrillianism. Eustathius, perhaps reflecting some serious thinking behind his intervention at Ephesus II, and foreshadowing some neo-Chalcedonian thinking, seems to have been proposing acceptance of the one-nature formula, so long as it was qualified by words like ‘enfleshed’ and ‘incarnate’ to indicate the human reality beyond the divine.60 Whatever Eustathius was referring to, it was not allowed to come to light. While the officials no doubt would have welcomed the sight of a known arch-Cyrillian like Eustathius praising Flavian’s ‘aer the union’ orthodoxy, the prospect of hearing him read to the whole council Flavian’s acceptance of the incompatible ‘one nature’, just as the official agenda called for focusing on Flavian’s two-natures-aer-the-union, was most unwelcome. Accordingly, when Eustathius requested that the autograph of the letter be read, ‘so that the whole council may say that it was 57. ACO II, I, 267, p. 113. See also ACC I, p. 185, n. 186. 58. ACO II, I, 267, p. 113. 59. ACO II, I, 267, p. 113. 60. He in fact put this proposal in the form of anathemas: ‘Anathema to whoever says one nature in such as way as to abolish Christ’s flesh ..., and anathema to whoever says two natures in such a way as to divide the Son of God.’ ACO II, I, 267, p. 113.

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accepted deservedly’, he was harshly refused, and was silenced by the challenge, ‘Why then did you depose Flavian ...?’ To that he could only answer ‘I erred’, and let the matter rest.61 He had done his best to interpret Flavian in a way compatible with his own stand on the new-formulae letters’ primacy, but in the end had succeeded only in enhancing Flavian’s reputation for Cyrillian orthodoxy, thereby serving the prosecution’s agenda. Once his orthodoxy and his harmony with the Cyril of the ‘synodical’ letters were established, this martyr for orthodoxy, Flavian, could be used to argue that uncompromising two-natures-aer-the-incarnation language was true to Cyril. e reading of the minutes turned at once to Eusebius’ and Flavian’s crucial statements at the Home Synod.62 e officials asked for a vote on Flavian’s statement, the first vote to be taken: ‘[D]id Flavian of sacred memory preserve the orthodox and catholic religion, or did he make some mistake in its regard?’63 Everything having been designed to show that Flavian was completely orthodox, and to marshal support for the assumption of a completely orthodox, putatively Cyrillian Flavian, this vote represented victory for Eusebius’ appeal on Flavian’s behalf. As the minutes would have it, the bishops, predictably led by those representing Rome, Constantinople, and Antioch, recorded their opinions in the affirmative, the sentiments expressed pretty well universally being of the type ‘Flavian of blessed memory spoke in accord with Cyril of blessed memory’, or, for those such as the Antiochenes who were less than happy about the ‘blessed memory’ of Cyril, of the type ‘[t]he martyr Flavian gave a fine exposition of the faith.’64 e representation of Flavian as at one with Cyril, combined with the matter of record that he had condemned Eutyches, was thus used very cleverly to bring Cyril’s authority to bear against Eutyches, Dioscorus, and the new formulae. e vote in favour of Flavian’s orthodoxy did more than that. ough the record in the minutes is clearly scanty at this point, this vote was of crucial importance, a fact perhaps attested by the inclusion of specific affirmations by important bishops.65 It was a decision in favour of the petition that was, legally speaking, the business of the Council, Eusebius’ petition against corrupt prosecution. Legally speaking, too, the penalty that had been exacted by the prosecutors (Dioscorus and the five othe bishops who had presided over Ephesus II) was automatically turned against them: 61. 62. 63. 64. 65.

ACO II, I, 267–69, p. 113, tr. ACC I, pp. 185–86. ACO II, I, 270 and 271, pp. 113–14. ACO II, I, 272, p. 114, tr. ACC I, p. 187. ACO II, I, 277 and 280, p. 115. ACO II, I, 273–98, pp. 114–17.

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they were deposed and stripped of ecclesiastical rank. Juvenal’s dramatic decision to abandon Dioscorus and cross the floor at just this point, seen by many over the years as a terrible betrayal, makes perfect sense when so understood. Whatever was yet to be said and decided about doctrine, Juvenal recognized that Dioscorus had had his day, and had lost with no chance of recovery, but there might still be a chance that he, Juvenal, would receive mercy, as eventually happened.66

A D V at is one version of how this episode unfolded. ere may be reason to urge a less savoury version. If we accept the version of the minutes of the Home Synod recording Flavian’s statement as cited by Chalcedon, the Council’s vote expressed approval for the whole of Flavian’s confession, including its most contentious sentence: ‘For we confess that Christ is from two natures after the incarnation, as we confess in one hypostasis and one person one Christ, one Son, one Lord.’67 If the minutes are accurate, that is, the imperial agenda had made substantial progress indeed – the crucial admission of two natures aer the union, required to satisfy Rome, had been made in black-and-white terms by the bishops when they adopted Flavian’s confession, and the council could have ended here so far as the doctrinal issue was concerned. Had the imperial agenda really made such headway, though? Had every formerly opposed bishop been converted instantly to the view that ‘two natures aer the incarnation’ truly represented Cyrillian orthodoxy, that the Tome’s uncompromising teaching correctly captured Cyril’s orthodoxy? ere are two pieces of contrary evidence, one circumstantial, one textual. First the circumstantial evidence. e later sessions of Chalcedon show that resistance to the Tome’s teaching on this point – even on the part of bishops who had subscribed to it! – was not about to disappear. How does one explain the inconsistency between the claimed agreement and the fact that substantial resistance went on aer agreement had supposedly been reached? e truth may be that things were not as black-and-white as seemed to be the case, and exactly what had been agreed to not so clear. Now we may turn to 66. ACO II, I, 284, p. 115. 67. ACO II, I, 271, pp. 113–14, tr. ACC I, pp. 186–87. It is entirely wrong to conclude that Flavian was making an eirenic gesture towards Cyrillians here in saying ‘from’ rather than ‘in’ two natures; the crucial indicator was ‘aer’, as Dioscorus recognized. ‘Aer the incarnation’ could not be squared with what Cyril said explicitly in the newformulae letters.

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the textual evidence. According to the official minutes we have been looking at, the whole of Flavian’s statement, including the contentious sentence asserting two natures aer the union, was read and then voted on approvingly. However, also according to the minutes, Dioscorus warned, aer the bishops had recorded that vote, ‘Let the rest of his words be read, and then I will answer. [Flavian] will be found in what follows to contradict himself and speak of two natures after the union.’68 He was, unmistakably, referring to the contentious sentence, but he was by the by indicating that it had not yet been read. If it had not yet been read, it could not have been part of what the bishops approved. Dioscorus’ evidence, moreover, is not the only evidence to this effect. We read that Juvenal, too, thought there was more to be read, evidently referring to a passage that followed what had been read, that is, surely, the same contentious sentence.69 Either Dioscorus’ and Juvenal’s comments have been displaced, and originally belonged before the vote, or their comments belong where they are, but if the latter, they show that what the bishops voted to approve was not the whole of Flavian’s statement at the Home Synod, but just the relatively anodyne first part of it. In that case we should perhaps conclude that the strategy the officials were actually pursuing involved two steps where the official version involved only one: the first step had the bishops affirming the faith they supposedly shared with Flavian, without it being specified that this included two natures aer the union; the second step, presumably intentional, rounded out the faith of Flavian by adding in the minutes the second half of Flavian’s definition. If so, the bishops, in the ‘fog of (ecclesiastical) war’, found themselves on record as in agreement with the ‘synodical’ Cyril, though that was not what they had actually agreed to. If this version of events is correct, the resistance of many bishops in later sessions to what the minutes would have them agreeing to is more easily understandable. ey had no trouble agreeing with Flavian’s anodyne teaching, but were not entirely ready for its corollary.

T F S E A kind of manufactured consensus had been developing to the effect that Flavian, as claimed by the petition on his behalf, had been wrongly condemned and deposed, that in actuality he had been an orthodox 68. ACO II, I, 282, p. 115, tr. ACC I, p. 188. 69. Aer agreeing that Flavian ‘spoke in harmony with the statements of Cyril’, he requested ‘the reading of what follows, in order to make the thought more clear.’ ACO II, I, 282, p. 115.

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Cyrillian with, in the background but not clearly spelled out, the qualifier ‘in the sense of the two synodical letters’. A majority of the bishops at Chalcedon thus showed, only part way through the first session, that they could be brought to an informal consensus in favour of Flavian and Eusebius, and against Dioscorus and Eutyches, though – as would be borne out in what followed – that did not mean they understood or really accepted what that implied, rejection of Cyril’s new-formulae version of his faith. Remarkably, if we are correct about the alteration of the minutes of the Home Synod as to Flavian’s statement of faith, they had been brought to this point without any explicit attention even being paid to the central evidence used against Flavian and Eusebius by Ephesus II, Flavian’s confession of two natures aer the incarnation. How these bishops would react when they discovered what they were supposed to have agreed to as to natures, whether in connection with Leo or in connection with Flavian, remained to be seen.70 Dioscorus seems to have been well aware of the sleight of hand involved, and to have tried to warn the bishops about it, but his warning came too late.71 Juvenal’s dramatic move seems to have successfully obscured the evidence Dioscorus was pointing to in the minutes, evidence that Flavian stood for the, to him and to many others, unacceptable and uncyrillian ‘two natures aer the union’. It was, for the officials, evidence best kept in obscurity, since events would show that many bishops, though they found it easy enough to grant Flavian’s orthodoxy in general and anodyne terms, did so only under the impression that Flavian had been found to agree substantively with Cyril. Indeed, they would, as we shall see, continue to evince a strong aversion to ‘two natures aer the Incarnation’ right up to the time when it was proposed as part of Chalcedon’s agreed statement of faith. Claiming the mantle of Cyril for Flavian’s faith, and getting the council to see Flavian’s faith as its own were successful only in part. For Marcian and his allies, therefore, there remained something essential to be done before the desired 70. e second session was to see the fragility of their agreement with Leo demonstrated. It began with the reading of documents, including the ‘synodical’ letters of Cyril, which were unanimously acclaimed: ‘We all believe accordingly’, they said, to which they added, with short-lived confidence, ‘Pope Leo believes accordingly’, for immediately aerwards, when the latter’s Tome was read and they realized what it said on certain points, the very Illyrian and Palestinian bishops who had crossed the floor with Juvenal and deserted Dioscorus raised objections of such seriousness that the officials declared an adjournment of five days so that those who objected could be ‘instructed’. Before this, evidently, these bishops had not seriously taken account of what Leo stood for. e initial acclamation: ACO II, I, 2, 20, p. 81; the objections: ACO II, I, 24–26, pp. 81–82; the adjournment: ACO II, I, 31, p. 82. 71. e Orientals’ claim: ACO II, I, 280, p. 115; Flavian’s exposition: ACO II, I, 271, pp. 113–14. Dioscorus’ warning: ACO II, I, 281, p. 188.

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creed could be produced. ere would have to be an explicit acceptance of two natures aer the union. Session I had, nonetheless, made a somewhat promising start on the imperial agenda, and it ended with clear imperial direction as to where it all was intended to go next. e officials neatly summarized what they saw the session as having accomplished, and what remained for the session qua legal procedure, the formal approval of the Emperor (a foregone conclusion): [S]ince the injustice of the deposition of Flavian of devout memory … has been proved by the scrutiny of the proceedings that have been read … it appears right to us … if it please our most divine and pious master, that Dioscorus [and the other five bishops] should receive the same penalty from the sacred council and be excluded from the episcopal dignity …72

S  A  S II e acts of the first session conclude with a very clear letter of direction from the Emperor: Let each of the most devout bishops of the present holy council set out in writing what he believes, without any anxiety and with the fear of God before his eyes, recognizing that the beliefs of our most divine and pious master … accord with the creed of the 318 holy fathers and the creed of the 150 fathers aer that, with the canonical letters and expositions of the holy fathers Gregory, Basil, Hilary, Athanasius and Ambrose, and with the two canonical letters of Cyril which were approved and published at the first Council of Ephesus, and [do] not depart from their faith in any way.73

e two crucial points here are the mention of the creed of Constantinople I – attributing a modification of the Nicene creed to Constantinople I presumably as a precedent for further modifying it by the proposed addition of two-natures-aer-the-incarnation language – and the familiar claim, derived from Flavian’s strategy at the Home Synod vis-àvis the ‘canonical’ or ‘synodical’ letters of Cyril, that these letters justify the conclusion that Cyril, with his great authority, approved such language. In case anyone did not get the point as to where things were being led and why, the bishops were cautioned also to bear in mind that ‘the most devout Leo archbishop of Senior Rome sent a letter to Flavian of devout memory concerning the dispute that Eutyches impiously stirred up in 72. ACO II, I, 1068, p. 195, tr. ACC I, p. 364. 73. ACO II, I, 1072, pp. 195–96, tr. ACC I, pp. 364–65.

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opposition to the catholic religion.’74 Satisfying Leo remained the fundamental agendum. Taken together, these two letters of direction sum up pretty nicely what Session I was taken to have accomplished, and the steps Marcian wanted the bishops to now take in that light.

74. ACO II, I, 1072, p. 196, tr. ACC I, p. 365.

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SESSION OF OCT. 10: THE EASTERN BISHOPS RESIST If Marcian and his staff thought, based on the number of bishops who had signed the Tome, the apparent success of the deployment of Flavian’s memory, and the relatively easy suppression of Dioscorus, that the council really was ready to agree on a satisfactory new statement of faith, their hopes were quickly dashed. A majority of the bishops, whatever they had said and whatever they had signed, recognized what was implied by the assignment they were given of producing an ‘exposition of the faith’, and they continued to take a stand taken at Ephesus II, a stand based on the so-called canon 7 of Ephesus I that forbade new creeds. As one bishop put it, ‘No one makes a new exposition … For it was the fathers who taught, what they expounded is preserved in writing, and we cannot go beyond it.’1 In short, these bishops carried on Ephesus II’s opposition to producing any such creedal statement, and carried on, too, what was bound up with their stance at Ephesus II, the kind of Cyrillian understanding of the faith that was, in fact, indistinguishable from the actual faith of Eutyches or Dioscorus, though now dissociated from them. eirs continued to be ‘the faith of the fathers’ as defined by Nicaea in its creed, confirmed by Ephesus I, interpreted by Cyril in his Second Letter to Nestorius, and, crucially, now also in the light of the new-formulae letters. e success of the campaign to get episcopal subscriptions to the Tome, meant to commit bishops to Leo’s kind of two-natures language, had not, we repeat, been as effective as it seemed to be.2 Reminded though they were that many of them had subscribed, the bishops remained adamant: ‘It is not permissible to produce another exposition.’3 Once again, loyalty to Cyril and his council was unshaken. ere was, frustratingly from the court’s point of view, a stalemate, and the court had not yet seen its way simply to forcing the bishops into compliance. Attempting to get past this roadblock, the officials made a proposal: the bishops could and should set up a committee of senior bishops to ‘deliberate in common about the faith, and then make their decisions known to all, 1. ACO II, I, 2, 1, p. 78, tr. ACC II, p. 10. 2. Signatures were, at least sometimes, perhaps oen, obtained from objectors by force: ACO II, I, 2, 76, p. 116. 3. ACO II, I, 2, 5, p. 78, tr. ACC II, p. 11.

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so that, if all are in accord, every dispute may be resolved, which is what we [the emperor] wish …’ 4 e bishops were not deceived by the periphrasis, recognizing in this innocent-sounding plan the mandating of a committee to produce a creed, and realizing, undoubtedly, that such a committee would in the end be even more susceptible than they as a whole were to being ‘corrected’, that is, suborned into adopting whatever was demanded of them by the emperor. ‘We stand in no need of correction’, they insisted, and dug in their heels: ‘We will not produce a written exposition.’ ‘ere is a canon …’ they pointed out, forbidding that.5 ey asked, instead, for a ‘postponement so that [they might] attain the truth of the matter with an appropriate plan …’6 If they hoped thereby to derail the imperial agenda and pursue their own, they in their turn were mistaken: the proposed striking of a committee on the faith might be postponed for a few days, but not indefinitely. (e committee was struck, and did report fully in Session V). In the meantime, they began their own process of ‘attaining the truth of the matter’ in the time-honoured, typical way by listening to the authoritative statements of the past, beginning of course with the Creed of Nicaea. ere was the usual euphoric response to the reading of the Creed, among the acclamations recorded being the assertions ‘is is the faith of the orthodox’; ‘Pope Leo believes accordingly’; ‘Cyril believed accordingly.’7 e bishops were, then, ready enough to agree that Leo was orthodox. Agreeing that he believed what Cyril believed was to say that they in fact accepted Leo’s orthodoxy in the broad sense, but it was not to admit that any particular thing Leo said – of course the key issue was with ‘two natures aer the incarnation’ – could be added to the creed. To make that part of the creed would inevitably entail anathematizing Cyril’s directly opposed ‘one incarnate nature aer the incarnation’, something no one orthodox in the new-formulae-Cyrillian sense could countenance. As we have observed more than once, Eutyches, driven though he was to capitulate on so much, refused in the end to capitulate on precisely this point. It was the one non-negotiable, not just for him, but for many loyal Cyrillians. e officials did not give up. ey next proposed that the creed of Constantinople I be read, apparently as before hoping to establish, without 4. ACO II, I, 2, 6, p. 78, tr. ACC II, p. 11. 5. ACO II, I, 2, 7, p. 78, tr. ACC II, p. 11. e bishops had every right to be suspicious. It was just such a committee that, ignoring the full council’s opposition, recommended Chalcedon’s famous Statement of Faith asserting two natures in Christ aer the incarnation. 6. ACO II, I, 2, 8, pp. 78–79, tr. ACC II, p. 11. 7. ACO II, I, 2, 12, p. 79, tr. ACC II, p. 12. We may legitimately doubt, in the light of the opposition many bishops had just voiced, whether all the bishops said these words.

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saying so, a precedent for making an addition to the Creed of Nicaea. ey then brought out the big guns in pursuit of a clear victory: they assumed it was time to try once and for all to establish Leo’s understanding of two natures aer the incarnation as the definitive christological statement.8 Resistance, we repeat, was based on the loyalty of so many bishops to Cyril’s incompatible christological understanding as found in the new-formulae letters. We also repeat that only one strategy had shown promise in dealing with exactly this challenge, the strategy of claiming the mantle of Cyril employed by Flavian at the Home Synod. e Home Synod’s minutes had just been read; Chalcedon, by its rehabilitation of Flavian and condemnation of Ephesus II had effectively reinstated the Home Synod’s putative victory over the same challenge. Repeating its tactic therefore was the obvious approach to take, though the situation posed, of course, a more daunting challenge now in the form of Leo’s Tome, which would have somehow to be accommodated. Leo, like Eusebius and Flavian, had to be shown to wear Cyril’s mantle, and that could be proven only if – as the Home Synod had shown to be possible if one privileged the two ‘synodical’ letters – the Cyril whose mantle he was said to wear was convincingly construed as having taught rather a ‘two natures aer the incarnation’ doctrine. No time was wasted in attempting this strategy. Aetius, Anatolius’ agent, proposed that the two ‘synodical’ letters of Cyril (no others were singled out) be read once more, managing at the same time to mention that the Second Letter to Nestorius had been ‘approved’ at Ephesus I, which implied conciliar authority. Moreover, he perpetuated the fiction that Laetenter Coeli had been ‘likewise confirmed’.9 When the letters had been read, besides the usual enthusiastic acclamations praising Cyril’s faith that always by this time accompanied a reading of anything he wrote, there were acclamations to the effect that Leo and Anatolius held the same faith, indeed that ‘as Cyril, so we [all of us at the council] believe’.10 e groundwork was laid for establishing the Tome as at one with Cyril, but the opposition remained fierce. Neither 8. ere can never be any doubt, if one pays attention to the acts of Chalcedon, that Cyril’s orthodoxy was taken completely for granted by the entire council (even, grudgingly, by the Antiochenes), but for a significant number of eastern bishops Leo’s orthodoxy had to be demonstrated. e acclamation ‘Peter has uttered this through Leo’ was clearly not so much the council’s recognition of Leo’s assumed magisterial authority as part of an attempt to quell eastern doubts about Leo’s orthodoxy. 9. ACO II, I, 2, 16, p. 80, tr. ACC II, p. 13. e fiction that Ephesus I had approved the statement contained in Laetentur Coeli along with the Second Letter to Nestorius was repeated so oen that it became an accepted ‘fact’. at claim would be balanced on the opposing side by the similarly false claim that the Third Letter to Nestorius had been approved, whereas it had merely been read. 10. ACO II, I, 2, 20, p. 81, tr. ACC II, p. 14.

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Leo’s authority, nor this redeployment of the strategy for ‘proving’ the Tome’s Cyrillian credentials that had proved at least partially effective in 448, by any means carried all before it in the east. It was bishops of Illyria and Palestine – showing either that their defection from Dioscorus’ camp in the first session had implied their alienation from Dioscorus personally, not from the faith he represented, or that they had simply reverted to their traditional stance aer a temporary lapse – who led the charge against the Tome. At three different points they objected to passages that sounded Nestorian to them because Leo spoke of the Word and the humanity performing distinct operations as if they were distinct entities, the classic mark of suspected Nestorianism.11 As we know, Cyril preferred to speak of the one Word and Son as the subject of all his actions. What is of interest to us here, though, is the response made in each case, in the first two by Aetius, in the third by eodoret: all appealed to passages in Cyril’s writings that sounded like the Leonine passages (and Cyril’s early insouciance about natures-language meant that such passages could be found12). e assumption was that, if Cyril said something resembling what Leo said, the latter must be orthodox. How could anyone object? at is, as it happens, just how these interchanges came to an end: ‘Aer all this does anyone have any further objections?’, the officials demanded, to which the bishops reportedly replied, ‘No one has any objections.’13 Had this truly been the bishops’ opinion, the officials would have gained their objective with astonishing ease. We might, in that case, have expected them to proceed at once with the production of an appropriate creed, or addition to the creed, based on the Tome. But the bishops’ objections had not really been resolved for most of them. Atticus of Nicopolis asked on their behalf for a respite of several days so that ‘what is pleasing to God and to the holy fathers may be formulated with calm reflection and unruffled thought …’14 It was hardly a revolutionary request, but he went further, and what he then requested really was revolutionary: he asked that they be provided with copies of Cyril’s Third Letter to Nestorius, whose anathema against distinguishing operations in Christ would unquestionably 11. ACO II, I, 2, 24–26, pp. 81–82. 12. Defenders of Chalcedon would work diligently at assembling dyophysite florilegia of texts from Cyril, e.g. the Florilegium Cyrillianum published not long aer Chalcedon, and attacked vigorously nearly a century later by Severus of Antioch in his Philalethes, which preserves in part the Florilegium: R. Hespel (ed.), Sévère d’Antioche, Le Philalèthe (CSCO 133–34; Paris, 1952). 13. ACO II, I, 2, 27–28, p. 82, tr. ACC II, p. 26. 14. ACO II, I, 2, 29, pp. 82–83, tr. ACC II, pp. 26–27.

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have set the cat among the pigeons vis-à-vis the Tome.15 It would be impossible to demonstrate that Cyril did not, in this letter and its anathemas, show how far apart he and others of the same persuasion stood from accepting someone like Leo as truly of the same faith. Equally unwelcome to the officials, undoubtedly, was the exclamation from ‘the most devout bishops’ (making the bishops at large the speaker rather than a particular bishop, as some scribe does here, shows that we are talking about a large number of them) that followed that bombshell: ‘If you order this to be granted, we request that the fathers take part in the examination.’16 What they were asking for was not just the restoration of the five ‘fathers’ who had directed Ephesus II along with Dioscorus, but the restoration of Dioscorus himself! ‘We have all erred; forgive us all’17, they pleaded. We note the conditional construction here: the bishops proposed the restoration of Dioscorus and his colleagues of Ephesus II if the officials were to allow discussion of the anathemas. What they were saying was that they saw no point in having Dioscorus et al. restored unless they got a signal that the officials were willing to let the council go in the radically new direction implied by their restoration. ey saw quite clearly what was afoot, yet dared to show how willing they would be, if imperial policy allowed it, to take a quite different, positive view of Cyril, Dioscorus, and Ephesus II, and inevitably a quite different one of Leo, than the one they were being pushed towards. Imperial policy was not at all ready to allow any such change of direction as Bishop Atticus proposed. e Third Letter to Nestorius had by tacit agreement been kept hors de combat for twenty years. e officials must have been appalled at the mention of the possibility of reintroducing it. More to the point, they must have recognized how close they still were to complete failure. ey tried to pull back from the brink without abandoning their agenda. Seeming to yield to part of Atticus’ request, that is, the proposal that there be a period for study, they declared an adjournment of five days. What the bishops were to do with those five days was, however, not at all what Atticus envisaged. Instead, the officials called for the appointment by Anatolius of a panel of ‘competent’ bishops who had proved their loyalty by signing the Tome; they were to be charged with the task of ‘instructing’ the ‘objectors’.18 As one of these objectors reported aer the fact, this meant being shown by Anatolius et al. how to resolve 15. As we have argued, this letter had tacitly been set to one side by Cyril himself, but he had never revoked it. It had sat there, like a landmine, menacing peace initiatives: what if Cyril or his successors were to insist upon it? 16. ACO II, I, 2, 30, p. 83, tr. ACC II, p. 27. 17. ACO II, I, 2, 34, p. 83, tr. ACC II, p. 27. On this point see ACC II, p. 27, n. 88. 18. ACO II, I, 2, 31–33, p. 83.

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doubts they entertained about the Tome. What they doubted, it seems clear, was whether Leo agreed with Cyril, given how he spoke of two natures aer the incarnation.19 is doubt the instructors addressed, not by proposing for the Tome a positively Cyrillian understanding of the one Christ, something it was unfit for, to say the least, but by having the Romans deny that they either divided (as was suspected) or confused the human and divine in Christ. is they did by simultaneously anathematizing ‘every man who separates from the Godhead the flesh of our Lord … and who denies that he possesses both the divine and human attributes without confusion, change or division.’ (It may be recalled that Cyril once defended his agreement in the Union of 433 with John of Antioch by claiming that the latter was substantively orthodox, but in the inferior form of making two separate assertions much like those adduced here, one as to Christ’s unity, the other as to the human-divine duality.20) e important point was that they were attempting to distance themselves from the view that, because they accepted the Tome, they separated the divine and the human in Christ. On that score, the same Roman bishops also ‘explained to us what the words [of the Tome] seemed to separate’, that is, they explained that the Tome did not separate the natures.21 Selling the Tome to eastern bishops was not, obviously, an easy thing to do if it meant, not just agreeing that Leo was in a vague sense orthodox, but accepting that Leo’s ipsissima verba about natures that operated separately actually meant the opposite of what they seemed to mean! But we have jumped ahead of ourselves. We return to the officials’ announcement that during the adjournment objectors were to be instructed. is did not go down well with bishops who had already made it clear that they stood ‘in no need of correction’.22 e session broke up amid the rival shouts of those who wanted Dioscorus et al. reinstated, and those who demanded that he be exiled. e sought-for unity of the church was very much not in evidence; rather, the possibility of schism was all too clear. It was at this juncture that Illyrian bishops shouted words of warning that had an ominous ring; indeed, they were to prove prophetic: ‘May no misfortune occur in your reign. May there be no division in your reign’. at these were intended to be a warning to the emperor was made even clearer by these same bishops’ explicit request that their words be reported to 19. ACO II, I, 2, 9 (98), p. 102. Another group of bishops explained similarly that they had ‘assented to most of [the Tome] as correct … but some statements in it struck us as implying a separation and division … [W]e were informed that they teach no division … but one and the same Lord …’ ACO II, I, 2, 9 (114), p. 103, tr. ACC II, p. 139. 20. See Chapter 9. 21. ACO II, I, 2, 9 (98), pp. 102–103, tr. ACC II, p. 138. 22. ACO II, I, 2, 8, pp. 78–79, tr. ACC II, p. 11.

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Marcian himself.23 However prescient the Illyrian bishops turned out to be in the long run, though, at the time the officials remained intent on the task set for them, and were not to be diverted, however calamitous the results that might flow from their and the emperor’s refusal to change direction. e session ended with uncompromising words that made their determination to carry the programme through clear: ‘e proposals will be put into effect.’24 One way or another, they were saying, the Tome’s identity with Cyril’s orthodoxy was going to be established, whatever the bishops thought, and that would make it possible for there to be a new creed.

23. ACO II, I, 2, 39 and 41, p. 83, tr. ACC II, p. 28. 24. ACO II, I, 2, 45, p. 84, tr. ACC II, p. 28. e proposals in question were for the establishment of (a) a commission of bishops to ‘deliberate in common about the faith’, and (b) Anatolius’ panel of bishops to resolve objections to the Tome.

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SESSION OF OCT. 13: THE TRIAL OF DIOSCORUS BY HIS PEERS Session II, though successful in legal terms, had not succeeded in establishing a solid consensus on two natures before the union. A good many bishops had indeed supported the decision in favour of Flavian with individual comments, but those who did were mostly of the Antiochene camp, suggesting strongly that episcopal support from those outside that camp was at best so. Dioscorus had been deposed, but there was as yet no squaring of Dioscorus’ proposed punishment with the crimes he had supposedly been guilty of such as might convince his sympathizers to desert him and his defence of Ephesus II. Moreover, the decision of the bishops in Session I, though the officials had at the closing of the session indicated their expectation that the decision would be ratified by the Emperor immediately, we have no record of such a ratification being issued. Instead, the Emperor had decided that Dioscorus should be tried and condemned by his episcopal peers in the absence of any representatives of the court. As it happened, Eusebius remained unsatisfied because his petition on Flavian’s behalf had been heard, but his petition on his own behalf had not. Dealing with it provided a forum for prosecuting the court’s agenda, a parallel to how Session I had proceeded. In his petition Eusebius asked that ‘the proceedings against me be quashed …, and that I recover priestly rank. [I beg you] also to anathematize [Dioscorus’] abominable teaching, confirm the doctrine of piety, and make him pay the penalty for his crimes …’ His sense of how this related to the wider strategy being played out is shown by what follows: Dioscorus should be made to pay the price, he said, ‘so that he may be an example to future generations and curb all who attempt to act like him.’1 at is to say, in a repetition of what had taken place at the Home Synod vis-à-vis Eutyches, and at Ephesus II vis-à-vis Flavian, Dioscorus’ punishment was quite intentionally to be an object lesson as to what would happen to bishops who continued to insist on the version of Cyril that was out of favour.2 His petition having been 1. ACO II, I, 2, 5, pp. 8–9, tr. ACC II, pp. 42–43. e wording suggests that revenge was perhaps more important to him than establishing orthodoxy at this point. 2. is mirrored exactly what had happened at the Home Synod, where Eutyches was made the sad example of what would happen to bishops who did not toe the line.

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entered, Eusebius demanded, no doubt again as part of a strategy agreed with the officials, that Dioscorus be called to appear as his ‘adversary’, that is, as defendant in court proceedings responding to Eusebius’ appeal against him.3 In this way Session III on the petition of Eusebius became, at the same time, the trial of Dioscorus. ere are intriguing questions that can be asked about the series of three commissions sent to summon Dioscorus, and the reports they gave. As was established by long-standing legal precedent, three separate summonses ignored were required before a person could be convicted for non-appearance. e canonical penalty for refusal to appear aer three summonses was, for a bishop, deposition and deprivation of ecclesiastical rank. In a new wrinkle, the commissioners read from written reports, rather than reporting orally. (ere was to be no ambiguity about what had or had not actually been said, not on Marcian’s watch, as there had been with the records of the Home Synod and of Ephesus II on eodosius’ watch). As is well known, Dioscorus refused to appear, leaving the council qua court with the option of exacting the canonical penalties without taking up the various other crimes alleged during proceedings up to this point or, more to the point, proving to the satisfaction of the entire council that he was a heretic. Whether he appeared or not, it had to be apparent to Dioscorus how the tide was running: he was certain to be condemned, and he would then be deposed. It is worth asking why he chose the course he did. e impression given by the commissions’ accounts of the reasons he gave for not appearing is that he was simply desperate not to appear, having observed how thoroughly he had been vilified, and how effectively his former allies had been convinced to desert him. ere may be more to it than that. To be condemned by the council for non-appearance was not the same thing, and not nearly so appalling a prospect for a proud man and a fierce one in defence of orthodoxy, as being condemned for heresy, especially if he had skillfully been prevented throughout from ever satisfactorily demonstrating his orthodoxy and proving how perfectly Cyrillian he was. On the other hand, a man condemned for non-appearance, but free of the taint of having been condemned for heresy, stood a reasonable chance of redeeming himself should more promising circumstances, such as a change of emperor, arise. It is worth asking, too, whether there was any cogency to what seem to be contradictory reasons given by Dioscorus for refusing to appear: he at first intended to comply, he said, but was ‘prevented by the hallowed magistriani and scholarii’;4 on second thought, realizing that what was 3. ACO II, I, 2, 6, p. 9. 4. ACO II, I, 2, 19, p. 11, tr. ACC II, pp. 44–45.

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proposed was a revision of decisions reached at the previous session in the presence of imperial officials, he said he did not intend to appear unless they were present too;5 then he was ‘constrained by illness’;6 then he refused to appear unless the other bishops who directed Ephesus II, though not named in Eusebius’ petition, were made to stand trial with him.7 Most intriguing is the claim that imperial officials and guards at first kept him from attending. In the light of the news carried by Constantine of Bostra soon aerwards, that this excuse no longer held since ‘through the coming of the most magnificent assistant to the most glorious master [of the offices] you [Dioscorus] have received permission … to come to the holy council’,8 we can say that the officials really did restrain him at first, then release him to attend if he so chose. is shi would seem to indicate a first assessment on the part of the palace that things were still precarious enough that it was best to ensure that Dioscorus was condemned and deposed for non-attendance even if that meant restraining him from attending when he was summoned, followed by a second assessment to the effect that, whichever course Dioscorus followed, the strategies employed against him had been so successful as to guarantee his downfall.9 Aer the second commission sent to summon Dioscorus had given its report, and as Eusebius was insisting that, since he had charged only Dioscorus, the latter’s claim that his five colleagues in the conducting of Ephesus II should also be summoned was without merit, he was interrupted by the official Aetius, president of this session, with the announcement that persons both clerical and lay had arrived from Alexandria and, waiting outside, wished to lodge additional complaints against Dioscorus.10 e drama of their sudden arrival and interruption of the council in pursuit of justice was clearly contrived: they admitted having already been in Constantinople with time and to spare for submitting their petitions first 5. ACO II, I, 2, 22, pp. 11–12. 6. ACO II, I, 2, 36, p. 13, tr. ACC II, p. 49. 7. ACO II, I, 2, 36, p. 14. e bishops in question were Juvenal of Jerusalem, alassius of Caesarea, Eusebius of Ancyra, Eustathius of Berytus, and Basil of Seleucia. 8. ACO II, I, 2, 22, pp. 11–12, tr. ACC II, pp. 45–46. e specification master ‘of the offices’ is found only in the Latin version. It seems at least as likely that the Latin is in error: the ‘master’ in question could easily be Marcian himself. 9. However unjust it may seem, a bishop apparently could be subjected to canonical penalties for failing to appear when summonsed, even though someone else prevented him. At least, that seems to be the obvious implication of the response one of the commissioners sent to him with a first summons gave to his claim that the officials prevented him: ‘We were not sent to the hallowed magistriani but to your sacredness to ask you to take the trouble to repair to the holy council …’ (ACO II, I, 2, 19, p. 11, tr. ACC II, pp. 44– 45). 10. Eusebius: ACO II, I, 2, 37, p. 14; Aetius: ACO II, I, 38, p. 14. eodore’s complaint: ACO II, I, 47, pp. 15–16; Ischyrion’s: ACO II, I, 51, pp. 17–19; Athanasius’: ACO II, I, 57, pp. 20–22; Sophronius’: ACO II, I, 64, pp. 23–24.

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to the emperor, and so could easily have been put on the agenda in a regular and less dramatic way.11 High drama was one hallmark of these interventions, notably submitted by three members of the lower clergy of Alexandria, and by one man who described himself simply as a ‘Christian’. e list of crimes Dioscorus was supposed to have committed reads like something from the tabloids. ere were major crimes: blasphemy, murder, arson, treason, demolition of homes, confiscation of property and funds. ere were minor claims: cutting down trees, playing dice, denying people access to the public baths. All of these were secondary, in the case of three of the four petitions, to one crucial claim: Dioscorus, far from being the loyal Cyrillian he claimed to be, had shown himself to be completely opposed to his predecessor by his persecution of people connected with Cyril. ese appellants had, they said, been in some way or other befriended and patronized by Cyril: eodore, a civil servant, had been made a deputy and ordained by him; Ischyrion, a deacon, had been entrusted by him with a sea-voyage on his business; Athanasius, a presbyter, was the son of his sister. All three attributed Dioscorus’ persecution of them to their connection with Cyril, and persecution not just of them, but also of other members of Cyril’s family. e shaming narrative about Dioscorus they were attempting to establish comes out most clearly in eodore’s complaint: Dioscorus had expelled him from the clergy, he said, for no other reason than because I had been honoured with the friendship and favour of Cyril of sacred memory; for [Dioscorus’] plan was to chase out of that city, or even deprive of life, not only the members of Cyril’s family, but also all those who had been on familiar terms with him, whom he hated because of the orthodoxy of his [Cyril’s] faith. For he [Dioscorus] is a heretic and has always held the opinions of Origen …12

It has on at least one occasion been argued that these petitions reveal a genuine ri between Dioscorus, a man who had risen through the ranks, and Cyril, a member of the upper classes. e last sentence cited, however, with its sudden shi from action to doctrine, seems to point the true moral of the tales these men were telling: Cyril was of course to be understood as orthodox, but Dioscorus, despite his claim to being a loyal Cyrillian, actually hated Cyril and the faith he stood for, and was therefore to be 11. ACO II, I, 2, 40. e same technique was evidently employed by Flavian and Eusebius at the Home Synod. Eusebius similarly arrived ‘unexpectedly’ in the midst of a synod already in session to lay dramatic charges against Eutyches. 12. ACO II, I, 2, 47, p. 16, tr. ACC II, p. 52. e charge of Origenism, at first seemingly a ludicrous mistake, perhaps suggests that there was a related claim in the background, the claim that Dioscorus was also on the opposite theological side to eophilus, Cyril’s uncle, who had led the charge against Origenism.

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understood as a heretic. His kind of Cyrillianism, the point of course was, was the opposite, the enemy, of the true Cyrillianism. We note that here, as at the earlier session, actually identifying Dioscorus’ supposedly heretical beliefs and attacking them directly were not part of the plan. As with the earlier section vis-à-vis Dioscorus’ association with Eutyches and his maltreatment of Flavian, this charge of bad behaviour against Cyril’s friends and family – the easier point to make a case for – was demonstrated first, from which followed the supposed implication of bad theology. Moreover, this approach made of the charge of criminal behaviour a useful weapon to deploy against Dioscorus should the charge of heresy prove difficult or inopportune to prove. One way or another, Dioscorus was caricatured as an enemy of Cyril, and a heretical opponent of his orthodoxy. He was the victim of what was clearly political theatre. Whether condemned on doctrinal grounds or not, his version of Cyrillian orthodoxy was certainly meant to be rendered suspect by this additional ‘evidence’. When a third commission had been sent to summon Dioscorus to appear and defend himself against both Eusebius’ charge and the new charges, and he had refused, Paschasinus, presiding over this session as Rome’s representative, asked the council quite insistently and several times to propose an appropriate sentence.13 Presumably he was engaging in a bit of political biplay aimed at situating the council bishops as prosecutors, but Rome as the final judge to whom they could ‘recommend’ a sentence that she would then ‘pronounce’. Had he succeeded, there would presumably have been no judgement pronounced by the council, only Rome’s. It was his ally, Maximus of Antioch, though, who made it clear that, on this issue, a council made up almost entirely of eastern bishops would not cooperate: ‘What seems good to your holiness we also ratify’, they said.14 at would signify their equality with Rome. Whether or not political manoeuvering was involved, Paschasinus eventually did ‘deliver’ a sentence ‘stripp[ing] [Dioscorus] of episcopal dignity and exclud[ing] him from all priestly functions’, and invited the council to ‘pronounce … a canonical verdict against the aforesaid Dioscorus.’ As Paschasinus laid out the grounds for the sentence, there were five in addition to the two identified at the first session (Dioscorus’ interactions with Eutyches and Flavian), only one of them having to do with doctrine, and that being exceedingly vague: Dioscorus had prevented the reading of Leo’s Tome at Ephesus II; he had pronounced excommunication against Leo; he was guilty of various misdemeanors, plaints as to which had been lodged against him at the council; he had 13. ACO II, I, 2, 79–93, pp. 27–28. 14. ACO II, I, 2, 93, p. 28, tr. ACC II, p. 69.

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failed to obey a third summons; he had been guilt of ‘frequently trampling on the decrees of the ancient fathers’.15 e bishops first signed their agreement on the sentence, those who provided commentary citing almost always Dioscorus’ failure to obey the council’s summons, then they signed individually decreeing his deposition. Significantly, in our view, a letter from the council to Marcian which spells out the doctrinal grounds for condemning Dioscorus – he restored Eutyches aer the latter’s condemnation by the Home Synod, despite the fact that Leo had ‘condemned in writing the wicked deceits of Eutyches, who said “I acknowledge that our Lord Jesus Christ was from two natures before the union, but that aer the union there is one nature”’ – exists only in Latin.16 at fact probably indicates that the battle of ‘nature’ vs. ‘natures’, whose resolution seemed so obvious to Rome and was so intrinsic to the Roman understanding of christological doctrine expressed in Leo’s Tome, had not yet been fully joined by the Greek-speaking bishops of the east. e battle was still being fought through surrogates such as subscription to the Tome (not the same thing to eastern bishops, apparently, as commitment to a creedal way of expressing its christological teaching), reception of Eutyches, condemnation of Flavian, unilateral excommunications and rehabilitations of various persons, and the maltreatment of Cyril’s friends and relatives. is was not to be the case for much longer: session III (ACC II) would finally both expose and attempt to address the unresolved issues le by the first two sessions.

15. ACO II, I, 2, 94, pp. 28–29, tr. ACC II, pp. 69–70. 16. ACO II, I, 3, 98, pp. 83–84, tr. ACC II, pp. 110–12.

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SESSIONS IV AND V e previous episode saw an abrupt change of direction caused by the sudden death of one emperor, and his replacement by another, Marcian, who had a different agenda: to find a solution to the division between all of the churches that included Rome. Rome, being adamant on the point, any joint statement of faith would have to include the difficult ‘two natures aer the union’, and that meant that new-formulae Cyrillianism had in some way to be suppressed, and the synodical-letters version of Cyril firmly established. Marcian called the Council of Chalcedon to achieve that end. e council’s first two sessions ended with the deposition of Dioscorus on non-doctrinal grounds. Flavian was, of course, rehabilitated, and presented as a model Cyrillian who accepted ‘two natures aer the union’. Marcian directed the council next to produce a Statement of Faith all could agree to. We must never forget that Marcian’s vision called for a reconciliation between east and west that would result in a unified church holding one faith: that meant bringing into agreement on a single document Leo and his Tome, on the one hand and, if not Dioscorus and Eutyches, then at least enough of those who had stood with them at Ephesus II to be considered with some plausibility the true representatives of the churches in the east. With the presidency of the council safely back in the hands of the officials aer the second session, and with the bishops directed in the third to deliberate about the faith, the imperial quest was on for that elusive, unifying statement of faith. e matter of Eutyches and Flavian having not only been resolved, but also deployed strategically in such a way as to cast doubt upon the version of Cyrillian orthodoxy Dioscorus defended, and the martyred Flavian having been painted as the epitome of genuinely Cyrillian orthodoxy, the emperor and his officials seem to have felt that they could push the bishops into getting down to the third basic task of the council, the creation of a universal creed: ‘[t]he question that is now to be investigated, judged and studied is how to confirm the true faith …’ Specifically, ‘it is particularly because of the faith that the council has assembled …’ e bishops are to apply themselves to producing ‘a pure exposition of the faith’ that even the disaffected can accept, and thereby be reconciled.1 1. ACO II, I, 2, p. 78, tr. ACC II, p. 10.

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A T W Any expectation that the grand plan of reaching cordial agreement on a universal statement of faith based on Leo could be achieved in a few days was by this time limping. e officials nonetheless remained determined to succeed, and Session IV saw them attempting to wrestle again with the problem of reconciling Roman and imperial ambitions for the Tome, and a new creed consonant with it, with the tradition of Cyril. Asked by the officials what had been ‘resolved concerning the holy faith’ during the five days’ adjournment they had given the bishops so that objectors might be ‘instructed’, the Roman delegates gave a first response that revealed the ambitions they had entertained for the council. In their view, the council had decided that the orthodox faith was comprised of three elements: the Creed of Nicaea and Constantinople I, treated as a single entity; Cyril’s explanation of the Creed; and Leo’s Tome.2 is was not the traditional eastern understanding, and certainly not something the eastern bishops had yet agreed to when they, or more accurately some of them, subscribed to the Tome, even supposing that all of them had subscribed freely and in good faith! In the Roman legates’ formulation Leo had taken something of Cyril’s place as the final interpreter of orthodoxy: like Cyril’s Second Letter to Nestorius, Leo’s Tome explained the Creed, but his explanation went further than Cyril’s in that it excluded both Nestorius and Eutyches. Ironically, given that what they proposed was unmistakably an addition to the understanding of the faith held by the great majority of eastern bishops present, they then appealed to Canon 7 of Ephesus I to forbid changing or adding to the just-changed creed they had enunciated. It was changed, that is, by the addition of the Tome, but now there were to be no further changes: the council, they insisted, ‘holds fast to this faith and follows it, allowing nothing further to be added or subtracted.’3 e Romans’ intervention was made in Latin (though it was, admittedly, translated into Greek for the bishops), which may explain how it happened that the other bishops did not immediately oppose it, indeed seem to have been unaware of its innovations. As had happened before, it was the officials who seem to have noticed innovations at once, and to have seen the danger of arousing the eastern bishops’ hostility – though the Roman bishops ignored that danger – and quietly put the Roman wording to one side. What the bishops were asked instead to vote on, and did in fact vote on, was not what the Romans had 2. ACO II, I, 2, 5–6, p. 93, tr. ACC II, p. 127. 3. ACO II, I, 2, 6, p. 93, tr. ACC II, p. 127.

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proposed, but something more traditional and acceptable to the east: they were to say whether the Creed of Nicaea, and of those who met in Constantinople in 150, was ‘in harmony with the letter of … Leo’?4 Many had granted as much already, but that did not necessarily deliver as much as it seemed to do. To say that the orthodox faith and the Tome were in harmony was still not to grant the Tome status as the authoritative and final interpreter of the tradition. e recorded votes – unanimously in favour, of course, as was the rule with church councils (those who disagreed found ways to be absent for the vote, we remember) – reaffirmed the view that they were in harmony, not that the Tome had Cyril-like authority. Such was the recorded vote even of the Roman legates, and eodoret, recognizing that claiming the mantle of Cyril for the Tome was unavoidably a key move for his faction, asserted, though it must have pained him to do so, its harmony with ‘the letters of the blessed Cyril’, by which he obviously meant the two synodical letters.5 e vote by voice was likewise universally in favour. e accounts two groups of bishops gave of what they were supposed to need instruction about, and of what that instruction involved when it was given, show that some, probably many, bishops had, despite subscribing, not budged substantively on the issue of a creed based on the Tome. e most they had been willing to do even aer instruction was to agree that Leo and the Roman bishops were fundamentally orthodox.6 Moreover, they showed that they were not really ready to disown what Ephesus II stood for by immediately asking for the restoration of ‘the fathers to the council’, that is, the restoration of the five bishops who presided over Ephesus II with Dioscorus, but who had apparently now signed the Tome. Progress in realizing the imperial agenda on the doctrinal front was painfully slow, and the eventual outcome in Act V suggests that the emperor was losing patience with the bishops, was in fact so frustrated and angry that his patience was, as Session IV proceeded, close to the breaking point. Even so, he handled this issue with kid gloves, still hoping to reconcile into one the various factions, as is shown by his response to this request for the restoration of the five bishops: he had, his officials told the bishops, ‘assigned to your judgement to resolve what seems good to you regarding the most devout bishops …’ e five, but not Dioscorus, were in fact welcomed back with open arms, and there were said to be exceedingly optimistic acclamations, obviously voiced 4. ACO II, I, 2, 8, pp. 93–94, tr. ACC II, p. 127. 5. e recorded votes: ACO II, I, 2, 9 (1–158), pp. 94–109; the Roman vote: 9 (2–4), p. 94; eodoret: 9 (41), p. 98. 6. One group of bishops reported through Sozon of Philippi: ACO II, I, 2, 9 (98), p. 102; the other reported through Anianas of Capitolias: 9 (114), p. 103.

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by non-Roman, non-Antiochene bishops hopeful that a balance had been restored at the relatively minor cost to them of accepting the Tome’s orthodoxy: ‘is is perfect union, this is the peace of the churches.’7 at was manifestly untrue, whichever viewpoint you adopted. ere remained significant groups of bishops and monks who had not cooperated even so far as had the eastern bishops participating in the council, and they required dealing with. Among them were some Egyptian bishops who had not stood by Dioscorus or, like him, become subject to deposition, yet who found themselves in a kind of no-man’s-land. Willing to at least consider capitulation to the imperial agenda, they were prevented from doing so by a canon peculiar to the patriarchate of Alexandria which compelled its bishops always to vote en bloc with their patriarch. Dioscorus having been deposed, and no replacement having yet been enthroned, these bishops were therefore prevented from signing the Tome, which meant they were not yet party to the condemnation of Eutyches, and that would, in the normal way of things, have meant they too were condemned and deposed. ey submitted a petition asking, it would seem, that they be permitted to continue in what they considered to be heritage Cyrillian orthodoxy, without reference to Eutyches or Leo, until a patriarch was elected who would tell them how to vote.8 e bishops of the council opposed their petition with considerable hostility. at is no surprise when it comes to Romans, Antiochenes, and Constantinopolitans. As for other eastern bishops, most of them had been happy with Ephesus II and new-formulae Cyrillian language, but they had since done things that must have troubled their consciences: they had yielded to imperial and Roman pressure to betray Ephesus II, had condemned Dioscorus and Eutyches, and had subscribed, albeit unenthusiastically, to the Tome. Why, they may have felt, should these Egyptian bishops be exempt from making similar sacrifices?9 e Egyptian bishops, for their part, explained how fearful they were of persecution or even death back in Egypt if they gave in and signed the Tome. ey were pilloried all the more fiercely by the other bishops at the council.10 How the officials responded, though, is truly illuminating, showing as it does how anxious they and their lord continued to be to make even a little bit of progress on their agenda, and how desperate they were to avoid schism. ey were, accordingly, exceedingly 7. e request: ACO II, I, 2, 11, p. 109; the assignment to the bishops: 14, p. 109, tr. ACC II, p. 147; acclamations: 18, p. 110, tr. ACC II, p. 147. 8. eir petition: ACO II, I, 2, 25, p. 110; the canon: 31, p. 111. 9. ACO II, I, 2, 26–30, p. 110 and 32–47, pp. 111–12. For another possible explanation: ACC II, p. 152, n. 41. 10. ACO II, I, 2, 48–59, pp. 112–13.

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eirenic in their interpretation of what the contretemps with the Egyptian bishops involved: these bishops, they said, were indeed resisting signing the Tome, but only because of the above-mentioned canon, not out of substantive opposition to it. ey should therefore be given the postponement they ask for.11 e Egyptians’ request was granted. We conclude that the officials had been instructed to do everything within reason to keep the door open to Egypt; a delay in resolving the issue of the Tome, central though resolving it was, was apparently not too high a price to pay if it meant keeping open the possibility that the whole Egyptian church minus Diosocorus might be included in the universal reconciliation Marcian still envisioned. Postponements were becoming something of the norm, and the frequency with which they were granted shows that the officials were desperately buying time to avert crises. Postponements also, of course, opened up opportunities for the inevitable backroom bargaining and armtwisting we can only guess at. Despite the officials’ generous agreement to delay proceedings, one delay was soon followed by a further dangerous confrontation between the imperial agenda and the continuing resistance of Easterners. e confrontation was occasioned, once the petition of the Egyptian bishops had been addressed, by another petition. is petition involved monastic factions in the vicinity of Constantinople deeply divided over subscribing to or resisting the Tome and what it represented. e resisters, represented by the monks Carosus and Dorotheus, cited their pre-council petition to Marcian in which they requested an ecumenical council tasked with putting ‘an end to faction, to the collecting of signatures by force, and to the harassment of ourselves practiced every day by the clergy …’, a conservatively Cyrillian stance.12 Once again we get a hint of the tendency of monks to associate themselves with the faith of Cyril and to dismiss the sophisticated Antiochene theologizing of higher clergy. eir resistance was represented at its most boisterous by Barsaumas from the patriarchate of Antioch, who accompanied the Constantinopolitan monks. What is important here is the deep sense of betrayal such monks felt, as they revealed in the plaint they now submitted at Chalcedon: Marcian had ‘told [them] that the faith defined by the 318 holy fathers would simply be confirmed and nothing other than this would be moved or effected.’ In that light, they said, and assuming Dioscorus really had been deposed on account of the faith, his deposition was ‘completely unreasonable’, for his loyalty to Nicaea was beyond question. ey 11. ACO II, I, 2, 60, p. 114. 12. ACO II, I, 2, 76, p. 116, tr. ACC II, pp. 155–56.

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demanded his restoration and that of his episcopal allies, and the holding of a council session on the faith that included them, that re-established orthodoxy as they understood it, and that rooted out heresy. Failing that, they warned, they would ‘break off communion with [the council bishops]’, convinced that what Chalcedon stood for was a rejection of ‘the faith of the 318’.13 e much-feared open schism over the Tome was clearly on the verge of becoming a reality in the Constantinopolitan monasteries. Tensions became yet more palpable during these deliberations, as increasingly hostile behaviour towards the recalcitrant monks on the part of imperial and allied church officials threatened to drive them into schism. e credentials of the petitioning monks were pointedly checked and ridiculed; some were declared absolutely invalid, and Aetius, the Constantinopolitan archdeacon, came close to fisticuffs with two monks whom he declared already deposed as heretics: ‘e archbishop tells you, through me the archdeacon, that you are deposed’, he said, ‘Get out.’14 Yet again church officials showed a tendency to exacerbate rather than heal the divide, and yet again it fell to imperial officials to try to avert a crisis. is they did by turning the council’s attention to the petition, calling for it to be read.15 Feelings were running so high, however, that they could not be contained. Fierce shouts against Dioscorus and the petitioning monks made it temporarily impossible for the reading to continue. Confronted by the demand that they accept the council’s decisions, the petitioners refused: they stood by the Nicene Creed and the Council of Ephesus, nothing more.16 is was a schism in the making. Aetius at this point offered a subtle and, for the future, important, new explanation of what the council had actually decided, bearing in mind that it had not yet adopted a new creed. It accepted, of course, what Nicaea defined, he said, but when errors arose, there were two necessary clarifying interventions in the form of letters, Cyril’s and Celestine’s being collectively one, and Leo’s being the second. ese letters’ purpose was to ‘interpret the symbol of faith, but without laying down a creed or dogma; these letters’ he said, ‘the whole ecumenical council welcomes and accepts, and transmits the interpretation they contain to those who desire to learn.’17 e notion that Cyril (and through him Celestine) had in his Second Letter to Nestorius offered only the traditional creed’s authoritative interpretation, 13. ACO II, I, 2, 88, pp. 117–18, tr. ACC II, p. 158. 14. Credentials: ACO II, I, 2, 63–64, pp. 114–15, tr. ACC II, pp. 153–54; Aetius: 71–73, p. 115, tr. ACC II, p. 155. 15. Barsaumas: ACO II, I, 2, 77–81, p. 116; the call for the plaint: 82, p. 116, tr. ACC II, p. 156. 16. ACO II, I, 2, 92–97, p. 118. 17. ACO II, I, 2, 98, pp. 118–19, tr. ACC II, p. 160.

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was now being applied to the Tome. is was not in itself new; we heard pretty much the same thing from the Roman legates. What was new here was the denial that these interpretations in any way constituted a creed or dogmatic statement. Marcian was intent, as we have seen from the beginning, on establishing a new creed based on the Tome, but the strongest rhetoric on the side of his opponents cited canon seven of Ephesus: there was to be no new creed. Aetius was offering, to put it cynically, a way of claiming not to be formulating a creed while actually doing so.18 He then demanded that the monks ‘heed this decision of the entire holy council, and anathematize Nestorius and Eutyches as innovators …’, but Carosus on their behalf insisted Nestorius and Eutyches were not the issue, but the Creed of Nicaea. As for Eutyches, he was not what they were loyal to, but the creed: they were willing, like Dioscorus, to anathematize him if he ‘does not believe as the catholic church believes …’19 A counter-petition entered by Faustus and other archimandrites allied with Anatolius and the emperor asked for permission to expel from their monasteries Carosus and Dorotheus et al., whom they styled disciples of Eutyches (though they denied it) and whom they accused of continuing ‘obstinately to deny and contradict the correct confession of the fathers’ despite Anatolius’ exhortations.20 Dorotheus put his finger on what was really at issue: the fact that Eutyches ‘asserted two natures before the union and one nature aer it …’ – the subtext is ‘as did Cyril’ – but he ‘posted declarations’ presumably demonstrating that he was orthodox.21 e implication is that Dorotheus’ contingent said the same, and could similarly show that they were orthodox. e officials once again attempted to divert attention, as had been attempted at the Home Synod of 448, by confronting them with the claim that the discredited Eutyches ‘said that the body of our Saviour Jesus Christ was not of our substance’, but Dorotheus refused to bite; he remained loyal simply to the Nicene Creed, and that was all that Marcian had indicated, in response to their earlier petition, that he would demand of them. He had failed them, and they would not sign the Tome.22 Yet again, there was an impasse, and yet again the officials, hinting that Marcian was directing them, proposed a delay, this time of two or three days ‘for reflection … so that aer reflection you may accede to 18. e distinction he made between a creed and an interpretation of a creed would later form part of pro-Chalcedonian rhetoric in controversy with anti-Chalcedonians. 19. Aetius’ demand: ACO II, I, 2, 98, pp. 118–19, tr. ACC II, p. 160; Carosus: 103, p. 119, tr. ACC II, p. 160. 20. ACO II, I, 2, 105, p. 119, tr. ACC II, p. 161. 21. ACO II, I, 2, 106, p. 120, tr. ACC II, p. 162. e declarations could be the document with which Eutyches began his defence, the one excised from the official minutes. 22. ACO II, I, 2, 108, 110, 112 and 115, pp. 120–21, tr. ACC II, pp. 162–63.

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the faith held by the holy fathers.’23 When Dorotheus et al. refused to budge, the officials still tried to leave the door open for them to reconsider. e threat was still there – a conciliar judgement was to be issued – but there remained an undetermined period of time for reconsideration.24 Aer the proffered three days, however, the threatened judgement came down. A report came to a special session of Chalcedon on the 20th of October. A fresh petition from Dorotheus et al. had been entered, it said, claiming that the emperor had agreed to preside over a meeting of monks from both sides, each laying out its case, but it had been brusquely rejected. Marcian said he would not have called a council had he intended to sit down with the monks and settle the matter himself. at was the council’s job. e resisters should submit to the council, and he would agree with whatever it decided: ‘Grasp this, you will not get any other answer from me.’25 e council agreed. Rather surprisingly, Carosus and Dorotheus entered another petition, its text not being provided, but which Aetius condemned for two things: its proponents were ‘limping as to the faith’, and contrary to canon law they gave Dioscorus the title of bishop despite his deposition, and asked Marcian to allow him to attend and participate in the council.26 Equally surprisingly, the council, at the insistence of officials, and therefore of the emperor, approved a ‘stay of execution of thirty days …’ for the monks, aer which they would either ‘walk upright in the truth’ as decreed by the council, or be stripped of ecclesiastical rank and excluded from the headship of monasteries.27 Of course, as we know, that eventuality would be reached long aer the momentous fih session of Chalcedon that was to take place just two days aer the session on Carosus and Dorotheus. T E S B Delaying tactics had done what they could. e committee set up at the officials’ insistence in Session 3 to ‘deliberate in common about the 23. Typically, the choices the officials offered were not full choices: who, bidden to choose between accepting the faith of the fathers and rejecting it, would choose the latter? What the monks wanted was the right to choose what they considered to be the faith of the fathers, and what was officially designated the faith of the fathers. 24. e proposed delay: ACO II, I, 2, 113, p. 120; the refusal: 114–15, pp. 120–21, tr. ACC II, p. 163; the impending judgement: 116, p. 121. Gaddis and Price are correct, in our view, in seeing ‘the emperor’s express wish for a postponement’ as indicating that the conciliar judgement threatened was not to take place immediately, but aer the postponement: ACC II, p. 163, n. 76. 25. ACO II, I, 3, 4, p. 100, tr. ACC II, p. 166. 26. ACO II, I, 3, 7, p. 100, tr. ACC II, p. 167. 27. ACO II, I, 3, 11, p. 101, tr. ACC II, p. 168.

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faith, and then make their decisions known to all, so that, if all are in accord, every dispute may be resolved, which is what we [that is, the emperor] wish …’ was now called upon to deliver its report.28 ‘Please make known to us’, they were asked, ‘what you have determined about the faith.’29 e expected answer would presumably have been ‘We agree, with the synodical letters of Cyril and with Leo’s Tome, that there were in Christ two natures aer the Incarnation’. Shockingly, the committee had agreed on something quite different, though it is not immediately clear what that was. at is so because, while we know that their ‘definition’ was then read out, we do not know for certain what was in it, because it was dismissed by the officials – without reference to the bishops of the council, so it would seem, an unprecedented exercise of imperial authority! – and its text was not preserved in the minutes, which say only that ‘it was decided not to include [it] in these minutes.’30 Shocking or not, the history of dogma was content to pass over this extraordinary information until the middle of the twentieth century, when de Halleux pointed to its existence and importance.31 Despite the minutes’ attempt to bury it, we can fortunately reconstruct a good deal. We know that it was different enough from the final definition that Chalcedon adopted, and politically explosive enough, that the officials insisted it be replaced by a more satisfactory (to them) definition, and that they saw to it, albeit with one careless slip, that even the memory of what it contained was eliminated from the minutes. We know that a loyal Antiochene, John of Germanicia, protested that ‘the definition is not a good one and needs to be made precise’, which means that there must have been a certain vagueness about it that would be troubling from his Antiochene point of view.32 at the vagueness in question had something to do with its problematic nature for the imperial agenda is, furthermore, attested indirectly by the insistence of Marcian, when the gloves shortly came off, that an ‘unambiguous’ definition be developed in its place.33 We know, on the other hand, that it pleased ‘[a]ll the most devout bishops apart from the Romans and some of the Orientals’.34 ‘All the most devout bishops apart from the Romans and … Orientals’ describes pretty well the rest of the eastern bishops, most of whom, we always need to remind ourselves, had joined in Ephesus II’s celebration of one tradition of Cyril that they saw as identical with ‘the 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

ACO II, I, 2, 6, p. 78, tr. ACC II, p. 11. ACO II, I, 2, 2, p. 123, tr. ACC II, p. 196. ACO II, I, 2, 3, p. 123, tr. ACC II, p. 196. De Halleux, ‘La définition’. ACO II, I, 2, 4, p. 123, tr. ACC II, p. 196. ACO II, I, 2, 22, p. 124. ACO II, I, 2, 6, p. 123, tr. ACC II, p. 197.

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faith of the fathers’.35 John of Germanicia’s objection was in all likelihood shared with the other Antiochenes, leaving us to ask what in the definition was objectionable, not just to one person, but to the Antiochene cadre more generally. We know that, agreement or disagreement with the Tome having always been the issue for the Romans, their objection must have concerned something in the definition that was not in agreement with the Tome.36 We possess, finally, one specific piece of information as to the positive content of the suppressed definition, thanks to an oversight on the part of the writers of the minutes, who undoubtedly were meant to have kept it suppressed: the officials just happened to mention, while making a quite different point, that ‘the definition has “from two natures”.’37 All of this evidence points in only one direction. To the majority of bishops, what in the end mattered most – what had in the end mattered most to them throughout the sessions of the council so far, as it had in the end mattered most to Eutyches at his trial – was avoiding having to anathematize those who, with Cyril, said ‘one incarnate nature [aer the Incarnation]’. Condemning them was something they would be committed to if a definition was adopted that in some way insisted that Christ was in two natures, or out of two natures after the Incarnation, or implied the same thing by saying simply that there were ‘two natures’. ese bishops had given up a good deal of ground as the council proceeded. ey had, under pressure, subscribed to the Tome; they had granted that Leo and Cyril were in agreement. ey had accepted the rehabilitation of Flavian and embraced his confession of faith at the Home Synod and accepted its identity with the faith of Cyril in the synodical letters. ey had not, however, taken these admissions to absolutely require condemnation of ‘one incarnate nature’. A vague definition served their purposes. A sufficiently vague definition that said simply that Christ was ‘out of two natures’ would leave them room enough to avoid that terrible outcome. e issue for Romans and Antiochenes was not ‘out of two natures’ in and of itself. at was not a strongly Cyrillian formula, though Cyril had used it in the new-formulae letters. Flavian also had been happy enough to use it, yet he was an Antiochene and a favourite with Rome. e point was not what this section of the definition said, but what it did not say. Here John of Germanicia would appear, speaking for the officials, the 35. ey reportedly shouted ‘Anathema to whoever holds a different belief. is is the faith of the fathers. e definition has satisfied God. is is the faith of the orthodox.’ ACO II, I, 2, 8, p. 123. 36. ACO II, I, 2, 9, p. 123. 37. ACO II, I, 2, 13, p. 124, tr. ACC II, p. 198.

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Antiochenes, and the Romans alike, to have hit the nail on the head: ‘out of two natures’ was not ‘precise’; it did not specify whether Christ was out of two natures before, or aer, the Incarnation. e vagueness that appealed to the rest of the bishops was not acceptable to Romans and Antiochenes. What they insisted was that Christ was in two natures, or that there were two natures of or in Christ, both of which ways of speaking implied ineluctably that the two-natures duality existed after the Incarnation. As the officials argued, ‘Dioscorus said that the reason for Flavian’s deposition [by Dioscorus and Ephesus II] was that he said there are two natures, but the [suppressed] definition has “ from two natures”.’38 at was the error they were out to correct. ere could be no ambiguity; the final definition must see to that. e Tome and its immiscibility with Cyril’s new-formulae teaching thus remained the stumbling block. For the eastern bishops the insistence on eliminating all vagueness with a clear statement as to the persistence of the two natures and their operations aer the Incarnation was something they, infuriatingly for the emperor, Rome, and the Antiochenes, were prepared to go on resisting, even as they knuckled under to demands that they subscribe to the Tome. ree facts quickly became obvious. e first obvious fact was that the majority of bishops were perfectly happy with the vague definition as it stood, and were willing to fight for it; the minutes record their surprisingly spirited and determined resistance to abandoning it.39 ey were, furthermore, quite unwilling to acquiesce in the officials’ suggestion that a representative committee be formed to revise it.40 e second obvious fact was that neither Romans nor Antiochenes would ever agree with the rest of the bishops on a definition that did not, on this fundamental point, come down on the side of the Tome.41 e third obvious fact concerned the emperor. He was – had been from the first – committed to producing a creed compatible with the Tome. He was not about to give up that quest now and accept something weaker that did not, in any case, do the job. ‘Do you accept the letter of Archbishop Leo?’ his officials demanded of the council. ‘Yes, we have accepted and signed it’, the bishops answered. ‘en its content must be inserted in the definition’, the officials insisted. e bishops tried to take the opposite stance: the Leo whose Tome they had signed was in agreement with Cyril, rather than the reverse, and that 38. ACO II, I, 2, 13, p. 124, tr. ACC II, p. 198. 39. For example, see ACO II, I, 2, 6, 8, 11, and 12, and 18–20, pp. 123–24. 40. ACO II, I, 2, 10, p. 123. 41. e Romans even threatened to pack their bags and return to Rome, there to reconvene the council, if a definition agreeing with the Tome was not forthcoming: ACO II, I, 2, 9, p. 123.

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was where they stood. ey claimed the mantle of Cyril for their version of Leo and their definition in no uncertain terms: ‘e [suppressed] definition contains everything. e definition contains the faith. Leo spoke the words of Cyril. Celestine confirmed those of Cyril, Xystus confirmed those of Cyril.’42 ree popes, all agreeing with Cyril! e officials as usual had the last word nonetheless, and there was menace in their voices as they warned: ‘Your acclamations will be reported to our most divine and pious master.’ And reported they were. e secretary Veronicianus was sent to the palace, returning shortly with a notification from the emperor. It was a notification, not of suggestions, but of ‘commands’. e empire was striking back. As the officials had proposed earlier without success, there was to be a committee set up of representative bishops to meet with Anatolius and the Roman legates; they were to go aside into the oratory and ‘produce a correct and unimpeachable definition of the faith so as to please everyone and leave not a single doubt’. Failing that, all of the bishops were to report on their faith through their metropolitans in a way avoiding all doubt. In the extreme case, the council was to be reconvened in the west.43 However the final definition was reached, the bishops were being told, it was to be the opposite of vague. ey knew what had to be included. No more delaying tactics would be tolerated. As the committee members prepared to gather in the oratory, on the floor the debate went on. Dissenters to the suppressed creed were called by some bishops Nestorians; objectors to the creation of a new creed were called ‘Eutychianists’ by other, pro-Leo bishops, and were challenged by the officials to choose between Dioscorus, who accepted ‘from two natures’ but not ‘two [natures]’, and Leo – who was in agreement with Cyril. ey were to adopt Leo’s ‘two natures united without change, division or confusion in Christ.’44 It is impossible to tell how long the committee was sequestered. If, as seems highly probable, a dra of what was expected was ready to hand, the meeting need not have taken long at all. In any case it cannot have taken more than a few hours, as the day had already included an opening discussion, the journey of the secretary across the Bosphorus to and from the court, his report, and further debate. It would conclude with the extensive report of the committee. When the committee returned and had taken its seats at the council, the officials cautioned the bishops not to interrupt, but to ‘deign to listen in silence to what has been defined …’45 is was as much as to admit that, 42. 43. 44. 45.

ACO II, I, 2, 15–20, p. 124, tr. ACC II, pp. 198–99. ACO II, I, 2, 21–22, pp. 124–25, tr. ACC II, p. 199. ACO II, I, 2, 24–28, p. 125. ACO II, I, 2, 29, p. 126, tr. ACC II, pp. 200–201.

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given what was about to be proposed, cries of outrage could be expected. What the committee submitted was not a report detailing what it had discussed and laying out its conclusions, but the finished text of a definition as from the council as a whole, and ready for signatures. It included much that is traditionally seen as prologue, as if only the second-to-last paragraph of the text were the real definition or statement. at is a mistake, as Gaddis and Price correctly remark.46 We need to see the whole as attempting to meet the imperial and Roman demand for a new statement of faith without completely alienating the eastern bishops. It does this by setting its additions in the context of what it construes as the long development of what was really a single creed, that of Nicaea. According to this construction, earlier developed by the Romans, that single creed had had to be expanded incrementally to meet the challenges posed by new heresies, and now, in the face of the rampant Eutychianism of Ephesus II, it needed to be expanded once more. Much that admittedly appears platitudinous, for instance the assertion that it was because the devil had introduced novelties to lead believers away from the truth that God ‘stirred up the zeal of this pious and most faithful emperor …’, who called the council so as to ‘dispel every corruption of falsehood from the flock of Christ’, was actually of some importance: the council was explicitly confirming a pre-eminent role for the emperor in defending the faith by calling councils, and implicitly rejecting any objection to Marcian’s unprecedentedly active participation.47 Much that sounds like mere confirmation of things voted on in Act IV actually applies lessons learned from that troublesome session. e officials, and perhaps the bishops on the committee, had evidently pondered strategies that gave their proposals the best possible construction. ere was the hard-won admission vis-à-vis Constantinople I that a legitimate addition had been made in the past to the Creed of Nicaea to defend against a new heresy, an admission that opened the way for proposed new clauses derived from the Tome. at was balanced by their insistence that the Nicene Creed was pre-eminent. ere could, the implication was, be no new creed as such, though the way was le open for there to be, at the secondary level, new language added to the Creed so as to spell out its meaning in new circumstances. ere was also the recognition of Ephesus I’s essential contribution of ‘decrees’ against Nestorianism, meaning Cyril’s Second Letter to Nestorius and Laetentur Coeli. (It was odd to depict the latter as anti-Nestorian, given what the Union of 433 involved, but that just shows how deeply fixed had become 46. e definition as a whole: ACO II, I, 2, 31–34, pp. 126–30; the ‘definition itself’: 34, pp. 128–30. 47. ACO II, I, 2, 31, p. 126, tr. ACC II, p. 201.

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the propagandistic notion that these two were the peculiarly authoritative ‘synodical’ or ‘conciliar’ letters of Cyril as compared with all others). ere was a hint of what lay ahead in the careful mention of Celestine ‘of Rome’ along with Cyril: the bishops were probably meant to see this as a forerunner of the harmony between Leo, also ‘of Rome’, and Cyril.48 ere followed the reverential recital – this was part of the council’s proclamation of faith, not of a reading of the historical record – of the symbols of Nicaea and Constantinople I, implicitly making the point that Chalcedon was not replacing Nicaea, but extending it, and explicitly locating its own addition as following from, being merely an explication of, the faith of the fathers embodied in the historic Creed.49 is construction of what they were about in their statement of faith, following the model as was claimed of Constantinople I and Ephesus I, was so important that the ground was gone over again. At Constantinople I teaching on the Holy Spirit was inserted into the creed, they repeated, ‘not as though they were inserting something omitted by their predecessors, but rather making clear by written testimony their conception of the Holy Spirit against those who were trying to deny his sovereignty.’ Now, it followed, there was the same need to insert something new because of new heresies. ere had arisen the symmetrically-opposed heresies of Nestorianism and Eutychianism, a typology (deceptive, we have argued, because there was really no new heresy of Eutychianism to be combatted, only an historic version of Cyril to be suppressed) already brought into play in Act I. ough the mantra of Nicaea’s all-sufficiency for ‘those who receive it faithfully’ was repeated, it was made clear that real and serious new dangers for the unwary had emerged and needed to be anathematized. Nestorians dared ‘to destroy the mystery of the dispensation of the Lord’, and denied to the Virgin the title of theotokos, making out that what she bore was a mere man, while Eutychianists allegedly invented the idea of there being ‘one nature of flesh and Godhead, and through the confusion of the two imagined the divine nature was passible.’ Cyril’s ‘conciliar’ (‘synodical’) letters were again accepted against Nestorianism ‘as in keeping [with these creeds].’50 e point of this whole exercise now emerged. e doctrine of Leo’s Tome was presented as though it followed naturally from the reading of Cyril’s letters, and was really an explanatory attachment to those letters, they having arisen as one step of several in the necessary development of the creed. (It may be remembered that, reporting on their progress during 48. ACO II, I, 2, 31, p. 127. 49. ACO II, I, 2, 32 and 33, pp. 127–28. 50. ACO II, I, 2, 34, p. 128, tr. ACC II, p. 203.

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the five-day adjournment between Sessions III and IV, the Roman legates claimed they all had agreed on exactly this three-part schema: Nicaea/ Constantinople I; explained by Cyril; explained by the Tome.51 e officials had not pushed that schema at the time, allowing a weaker version to go forward, but now it returned in full force.) To these letters [the council] has attached appropriately, for the confirmation of the true doctrines, the letter written by the president of the great and senior Rome, the most blessed and holy Archbishop Leo, to Archbishop Flavian, [now] among the saints, for the confutation of the perversity of Eutyches … for the council sets itself against those who attempt to dissolve the mystery of the dispensation into a duality of sons, and it removes from the list of priests those who dare to say that the Godhead of the Onlybegotten is passible; it opposes those who imagine a mixing or confusion in the case of the two natures of Christ, it expels those who rave that the form of a servant which he took from us was heavenly or of some other substance, and it anathematizes those who invent two natures of the Lord before the union and imagine one nature after the union.52

Aer just one rather feeble swipe at an allegedly Antiochene doctrine that major Antiochene teachers had disowned, the doctrine of two sons, the statement focuses on the supposed errors of Eutyches and Eutychians, climaxing that section, just as we might expect, in its final clauses with the anathematization of the essential ‘error’ Eutyches refused to renounce, and which the Home Synod of 448 had been designed to suppress. It was, crucially in the present context, the ‘error’ which Leo’s Tome had explicitly condemned, and Rome aer it. It was the ‘error’ of maintaining a Christ out of two natures before the Incarnation, and one [incarnate] nature aer it. What was being anathematized, in fact, was nothing other than the newformulae language enunciated by Cyril in 433 in response to the Nestorians, though Cyril’s name was never openly associated with it at Chalcedon aer the silencing of Eustathius. When Cyril’s name was appealed to at Chalcedon by the officials and their allies, it was always in association only with the Rome- and Antioch-friendly ‘synodical’ letters. Chalcedon, they were determined, wore Cyril’s mantle now. It did not belong – had in fact never properly belonged, so they were claiming – to Eutyches, Ephesus II, or any bishops who insisted on the new formulae. e penultimate paragraph consists of the familiar ‘Chalcedonian Definition’ in the narrower and more usual sense.53 It picks up themes of the controversy and attempts, within limits, to provide the precision and 51. ACO II, I, 2, 6, p. 123. 52. ACO II, I, 2, 34, p. 129, tr. ACC II, pp. 203–204. 53. ACO II, I, 2, 34, p. 129.

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lack of ambiguity demanded by the emperor and Rome, while soening the blow for the eastern bishops with minor bows to Cyril. On the first score, it asserts clearly that Christ is consubstantial both with God the Father and with us, taking up an argument used against Eutyches at the Home Synod; it includes the so-called Chalcedonian adverbs ‘without confusion, without change, without division, without separation’, enunciated by the papal legates in Session IV, the first two of which excluded Eutyches’ supposedly Monophysite views; and it quotes almost verbatim the crucial subordinate clause in Cyril’s ‘synodical’ Second Letter to Nestorius that had ‘the distinctive character of each nature being preserved …’ On the second score, it repeats ‘one and the same’, calls the Virgin Mary theotokos, echoes Cyril’s two natures recognized before the Incarnation with the word ‘acknowledged’, cites the second pair of Chalcedonian adverbs, asserts that the human and divine came together ‘into one person and one hypostasis, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same …’ 54 Be all that as it may, the plain fact was that the Definition asserted, without any possibility of misunderstanding, that the one Christ was acknowledged ‘in two natures’, which meant two natures aer the union, and that was an out-and-out victory for the Romans and Antiochenes. Of course the officials knew that this resolution of the issues, while pleasing to Rome and to the Antiochenes, was what partisans of Cyril among the eastern bishops, clergy, and monks had been resisting for years, while yielding on lesser points when they could in conscience do so. To subscribe to the Tome had been not impossible for many of them. Admission of two natures – without the qualifying ‘before’ or ‘aer’ – had not been impossible, though there was a growing but simplistic tendency on the part of Cyril’s followers to see the issue as though it were simply between the Antiochenes’ ‘two natures’ and their ‘one nature’. at would be more and more the view among Cyrillian loyalists who broke away aer the despised Chalcedon had chosen to insist on ‘two natures’. What none of them could do, as we have said before, was in good conscience to subscribe to a position that required anathematizing Cyril and something he had patently taught – one nature aer the Incarnation –, even if only at one point in his career. It was all very well for the statement to go on to specify that the Virgin Mary was theotokos; to balance its antiEutychian ‘without confusion [or] change’, with its anti-Nestorian ‘[without] 54. Too much should not be made of ‘one person and … hypostasis’. e word ‘person’ comes more from Roman and Antiochene thinking than from Cyrillian, and ‘hypostasis’ is, as we have remarked, a word that had no technical meaning for Cyril. See Chapter 3.

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division, [or] separation’; even to salvage the new-formulae letters’ ‘known’ [from two natures] in the slightly-modified form of ‘acknowledged’ [in two natures]. It was all very well, too, to speak of ‘one person and one hypostasis, not parted or divided into two persons, but one and the same …’ None of these changed the fundamental fact that what the council was resolving implied, for those who cared to notice – and all eyes were on the council – the anathematizing of church fathers of the first rank. at had since 448 been a stone of stumbling, and it continues to be a stone of stumbling for many to this day.55 No wonder, then, that the officials urged the immediate ratification of the statement without discussion, for to have allowed discussion would undoubtedly have opened the floodgates to bitter feeling and laid bare the incompatibility of the two parties. ‘Let the metropolitans sign at once’, they urged. ‘Let them sign at once in the presence of the officials. Let this splendid definition suffer no delay.’56 e urgency they felt could not be more apparent. ere remained only the necessary approval of the emperor, and the formal approval of the definition at Session VI, which need not concern us.

55. ACO II, I, 2, pp. 129–30, tr. ACC II, p. 204. 56. ACO II, I, 2, p. 130, tr. ACC II, p. 205.

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CHALCEDON AND THE NESTORIANS e Statement of Faith reached by Chalcedon failed to accommodate, because at another extremity it had to accommodate Rome, resistant newformulae Cyrillians. How great a disaster that was was not immediately apparent. It was not clear whether they might not be brought around to accepting the synodical Cyril. In the meantime, though, there was a question about the more radical Antiochenes, those who had stood by Nestorius and refused to condemn him, the Nestorians, among them eodoret and Ibas. Could the mantle of Cyril be stretched to include them alongside their former enemies? How would that affect the final outcome?

T C  T eodoret got off to a bad start in Session 1. e attempt to seat him as one of the participating bishops caused a near riot, and the alarmed officials ignored his attempt to enter an appeal against attacks, instead declaring that he was to sit as an accuser rather than as a judge.1 ere continued to be open hostility towards him on the usual grounds, particularly on the part of the Egyptians: ‘is man anathematized Cyril’, and ‘eodoret accused Cyril. We exclude Cyril if we admit eodoret’.2 But eodoret recognized the utility of disguising himself as a Cyrillian. (He may even be the one who first invented th strategy of claiming the mantle of Cyril, for all we know). He kept very quiet throughout the first seven sessions, and when he did say something, it was aimed at demonstrating kinship with Cyril. He interjected between the claims of others that they believed as Cyril did, his own indirect claim to at least disown what Cyril disowned: ‘Anathema to whoever says two Sons’. When objections to the Tome from Palestinian and Illyrian bishops were being dealt with in Session 3, he pulled off the trick of citing Cyril reverentially (‘ere is a similar instance in the blessed Cyril …’) while aligning him with Leo.3 Early in Session 4 1. ACO II, I, 1, 26–27, p. 69; 32–35, pp. 69–70. 2. ACO II, I, 1, 39, p. 70; 43, p. 70, tr. ACC I, pp. 135 and 136. 3. ACO II, I, 2, 26, p. 82, tr. ACC II, p. 26.

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a vote was taken in writing on the question whether the Creed of Nicaea and of Constantinople I was in harmony with the Tome. eodoret agreed that it was, but tactfully added something, as did many others: the letter did accord with both statements of faith, he said, but also ‘with the letters of the blessed Cyril’. He had made it somewhat difficult to charge him with being against Cyril, but he had done nothing to clear himself of the charge of being a Nestorian. Session 8 was devoted to eodoret. Many of the bishops who remained at the council – there seems to have been some melting away over time, but the numbers cited in the acts are notoriously undependable – remained deeply suspicious of eodoret. He protected himself from the charge of being against Cyril, but there was still the black-and-white question, was he, or was he not, really a Nestorian? It was not a question he wanted to answer in those simplistic terms – he was, aer all, an intellectual from a school proud of its mastery of fine distinctions. Instead of answering the question straightforwardly, he attempted to re-introduce the petition he had tried to enter in Session 1; several times he started to explain his position. e bishops did not want to hear explanations. Before he could say a word, they demanded that he pronounce anathema on Nestorius, and each time he tried to say something, they interrupted him with the same demand, expanding it to ‘anathema to Nestorius and his friends’, a hint that, if the logic were pressed, eodoret should anathematize himself. eodoret had to give in: ‘Anathema to Nestorius and to whoever does not say that the holy Virgin Mary is Theotokos, and to whoever divides the one only-begotten Son into two Sons. I have signed the definition of the faith and the letter of … Leo, and I think accordingly.’ He could not help showing his irritation by adding, ‘And aer all this may you be preserved’, which could better but more loosely be translated in the more modem idiom as ‘And I hope that makes you happy!’4 e acts describe only eodoret’s attempts to speak and the Cyrillians’ attacks on him until midway in the session. Suddenly, right aer eodoret’s anathematizing of Nestorius and his ironic ‘I hope that makes you happy’, the mood of the acts completely changes and they report only what was favourable towards eodoret. According to them, the officials immediately claimed that ‘[a]ll remaining doubts about … eodoret have been resolved’ and ‘all the most devout bishops exclaimed “eodoret is worthy of the see”’.5 All of them? What of the bishops who had just been attacking him so ferociously? It seems not implausible that the latter walked out, leaving 4. ACO II, I, 3, 4–13, p. 9, tr. ACC II, pp. 254–55. 5. ACO II, I, 3, 14, p. 9, tr. ACC II, p. 255.

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only the pro-eodoret bishops to follow Anatolius’ lead in declaring him ‘proved to be wholly orthodox’. e officials, pretending more confidence than they can actually have had, turned this into a claimed victory, announcing that ‘the time has come for all to maintain concord’.6 T C  I Ibas’ case was particularly problematic. He was notorious for his Letter to Mari the Persian of 433, in which he accused Cyril of being an Apollinarian heretic, and attacked his anathemas.7 at was by no means the end of his notoriety, though it excited the bitterest opposition. Elevated to the throne of Edessa in 435 upon Rabbula’s death, he took an uncompromisingly Nestorian stance that made him one of the bêtes noires of Cyrillians. By 445 this stance had led him to become the object of renewed charges, the most serious of which was that he called Cyril a heretic, and these led him eventually to appeal to eodosius and to Flavian, his metropolitan. ey – the latter an Antiochene working in the Antiochene cause, we recall – agreed that his case should be tried by a panel of bishops.8 e emperor accordingly issued a mandate in 448 committing Ibas to trial by a panel of three bishops, one of them being Eustathius of Berytus, perhaps chosen for his Cyrillian credentials to give the appearance of reconciliation. at makes sense in the light of imperial strategy’s concern to reconcile the parties. How eodosius intended things should play out may be judged from the fact that the mandate was issued little more than a week – in late October of 448 – before the opening of the Home Synod which tried Eutyches. As at that synod, so with the panel’s session, imperial policy demanded that the peace achieved by the ‘Union’ in 433 be renewed and strengthened; the new-formulae language insisted upon by some Cyrillians was to be suppressed, replaced by the Cyril of the synodical letters, so that Antiochenes and Cyrillians could live together. e panel held hearings in February of 449 and gave its verdict on the twenty-fih of the month, if verdict it was. What had happened was extraordinary. When the panel had heard the accusations against Ibas, they said, they abandoned for a short time the role of arbitrators and, having regard for the common good of the holy churches, made ourselves, instead of judges, mediators of peace between the two parties. Aer much consultation … we 6. Anatolius: ACO II, I, 3, 17, p. 10; the officials: 32, p. 11. 7. ACO II, I, 3, 138, pp. 32–34. 8. ACO II, I, 3, 56, pp. 22–23, tr. ACC II, p. 282.

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induced the most God-beloved Bishop Ibas … to set out in writing what he held and believed … [He] undertook, even beyond the call of duty, to address the church in his own city and publicly anathematize Nestorius …; he also undertook to profess belief in what is contained in the letter of accord between … John of the very great city of Antioch and Cyril …, to assent to all the recent transactions of the holy synod [the Home Synod], and to embrace everything that was decreed in the metropolis of Ephesus … and to consider it equal to the one convoked at Nicaea, acknowledging no difference between them.9

is remarkable turn was topped off by a theatrical appeal to the exonerated Ibas that he embrace his former accusers in a total amnesty.10 A touching moment of ecumenical eirenicism? Hardly. Can one really imagine that such a panel would have dared to depart from the role of arbitrator – a role assigned to it by the emperor himself – and to have assumed instead the extraordinary role of mediator, unless eodosius himself directed them, through one channel or another, to do so for his own strategic purposes? What actually was happening was, as we might expect, in fact perfectly consonant with what Flavian at that very moment was arranging to make happen at the Home Synod: Antiochenes and their Cyrillian opponents were being reconciled on the basis of a shared, public, but tactical condemnation of Nestorius, and a shared overt devotion to Cyril – but to the Cyril of the ‘Union’ of 433 and of the ‘synodical’ letters, and therefore of two natures aer the Incarnation. It must have amused Ibas, unable though he was at last to avoid the distasteful requirement that he condemn Nestorius, to play the part of a man forced against his will to agree to a document (the ‘Union’) his own party had produced, and to embrace a synod (the Home Synod of 448) that from start to finish served his and his party’s cause! e decision of the panel to domesticate Ibas as a Cyrillian in these terms made perfect sense in 448, when imperial policy was aimed at effecting a peace between the parties on the basis of a renewed ‘Union’ that claimed the mantle of Cyril. We know, though, that imperial policy abruptly took the opposite tack within a few months, a change culminating in Ephesus II and the condemnation of Antiochenes like eodoret and Ibas.11 ree years later, under Marcian, imperial policy was again reversed, and the old challenges faced the emperor and his advisers once 9. ACO II, I, 3, 7, p. 15, tr. ACC II, p. 262. e demand that Ibas, in a completely different context, assent to what happened at the Home Synod of 448 reveals the intention behind that synod: to establish for the eastern church at large, by instructive examples, both what one was supposed to believe (Flavian and Eusebius), and what one was to avoid believing (Eutyches). 10. ACO II, I, 3, 7, p. 15, tr. ACC II, p. 263. 11. Condemnation of Ibas, Syriac acts: Flemming, Akten, pp. 61–69.

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again: how was the new council, Chalcedon, to suppress divisive newformulae language while still making a convincing claim to being true to Cyril, so that Cyrillians, along with Romans and Antiochenes, could be united in one church? In the present situation men like Ibas who had only recently agreed to condemn Nestorius aer decades of supporting him posed the problem in a particularly acute form: could bishops who had heard for decades of his notorious campaign against Cyril and his Antiochene teaching be convinced that he was really now a Cyrillian? Despite all that had transpired in previous sessions of Chalcedon, it quickly became apparent that the eastern bishops were not ready simply to accept that Ibas could be reconciled with Cyril. ey had stretched the notion of what was acceptably Cyrillian under extreme pressure from the emperor, but that was not the same thing as embracing someone who had openly and famously called Cyril a heretic. At the same time, they must have realized that they were under the gun. It would be dangerous and, in the light of what had been decided by Chalcedon earlier, fruitless to try to assert again what they positively believed. ey therefore met the Romans’ proposal at the outset of Session 9 that Ibas’ petition for reinstatement be disposed of simply by adopting the favourable conclusion of the 449 hearing, with stony silence. Did its resolution stand, the Romans then asked, or did Chalcedon have to follow due process and come to its own decision?12 Again silence. Did the panel even ‘acknowledge its own verdict’? Would Eustathius stand by his dicey role in the hearing? e panel had to respond, but its response was equivocal: they had written the account, they said, they had reached that verdict, but by their silence aer that admission they indicated that they did not ‘acknowledge’ their verdict in the sense of standing by it.13 ey did not believe Ibas’ condemnation of Nestorius was sincere, and continued to resist the notion of rendering a favourable judgement on someone they still considered to be a thinly-disguised Nestorian whose true stripes had been revealed by his condemnation of Cyril. e other eastern bishops shared their hostility, likewise maintaining a resolute silence when asked to express their views on the matter. e officials responded as they always did when met with determined resistance: they shied away from forcing the issue then and there, which might risk an open schism, but they did not budge on the long-term agenda. Accordingly, though the day was still young and very little business had been dealt with, they declared a recess until the following day. We can be sure that the unstated intention was the predictable one: the bishops were in 12. ACO II, I, 3, 6, p. 14, tr. ACC II, p. 261. 13. ACO II, I, 3, 9–11, p. 16, tr. ACC II, p. 264.

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the interim to be ‘educated’ into agreeing with the imperial agenda. at winning a temporary stay might turn into permanent victory over the imperial agenda for the bishops was never a possibility. As the officials warned, ‘[t]he holy council will express its opinion tomorrow’.14 Session X of Chalcedon reviewed the previous evidence and looked at some new evidence, ignoring Ibas’ request that proceedings against him be annulled on the grounds that he had been condemned in absentia. e officials had evidently learned something important from their ‘educational’ conversations with the bishops: they had learned that their deepseated objections to Ibas mostly had to do with his reputation as a foe of Cyril. He was, for instance, identified rightly or wrongly with the smartaleck claim, ‘I don’t envy Christ becoming God, for inasmuch as he became God, so also have I.’ It is not immediately clear what attributing it to Ibas implied, except that it was clearly supposed by Ibas’ Cyrillian enemies to prove him to be a Nestorian.15 Ibas had had time to prepare his response: he not only denied he ever said any such thing, he could produce, in opposition to his accusers’ three witnesses, the depositions of more than two hundred clerics of Edessa to the effect that he had never said those words.16 Ibas could hardly deny he had called Cyril a heretic – the evidence was infamously there in the Letter to Mari for all to see – but he could and did deny that he had done so aer the Union of 433, by which time, as we also know from the letter, he claimed that he and Cyril had come to enjoy communion in Antiochene teachings. How convincing that argument would be for unsympathetic bishops one cannot but wonder. Be that as it may, the officials, rather than allowing critics an opportunity to use the letter against Ibas, immediately granted Ibas’ request that the letter of the Edessene clergy attesting that he had never been heard to utter the Nestorian ‘I don’t envy Christ’ be accepted, and so it was. Seizing upon this 14. ACO II, I, 3, 13, p. 16, tr. ACC II, p. 264. 15. ACO II, I, 3, 81, p. 27, tr. ACC II, p. 287. For other forms in which it was preserved, see ACC, p. 266, n. 6. e fuller form in the Syriac Acts, given there, adds helpfully, ‘for he is of the same nature as myself.’ It is no concern of our inquiry to explain how this sentence happened to be something an arch-Antiochene was charged with saying. Still, it may be suggested that, if one thinks about it, it makes sense to focus on the word ‘become’, and to see at work here the Antiochene critique of Cyril’s literal reading of the word ‘become’ in connection with the Incarnation, as in John 1:14 and the Nicene Creed. For Cyril, the Word literally did become flesh, with the corollary that, in divinization, we and others may truly become divine. To Antiochenes like the author of Eranistes, for instance, that was Cyrillians’ fundamental and characteristic mistake. ey gave a sophisticated counterinterpretation of ‘become’: christologically, for them it meant conjunction. I can ‘become’ divine if becoming means being conjoined with, just as truly as Christ’s humanity ‘became’ divine, or the Word ‘became’ flesh. 16. Ibas’ denial: ACO II, I, 3, 83, p. 27; the depositions: 92, p. 27, and 141, p. 35. e number of bishops was clearly inflated. Only 65 signatories are listed in 141.

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as an opportune moment to move the session towards a close, the officials proposed a reading of the minutes of Ephesus II that involved the condemnation of Ibas, ‘so that nothing may be omitted from what needs to be rightly judged …’17 Led by Rome and Constantinople, the bishops decided instead to treat Ephesus II as already proven null and void, and therefore not worth the reading, though they could not avoid making an exception for the replacement of Domnus by Maximus in the see of Antioch.18 e officials then called for a decision about Ibas. e Romans claimed that Ibas had been ‘proved innocent, and from the reading of his letter we have found him to be orthodox.’19 Other bishops agreed, their conclusion being ably summed up in the most optimistic way by Eunomius of Nicomedia: Now indeed the most devout Ibas has been proved innocent from what has been read. For as regards the statements in which he seemed to accuse the most blessed Cyril by speaking ill of him, he made a correct profession in his final statements and rebutted those in which he had accused him. erefore, since he has anathematized Nestorius and Eutyches and their impious doctrines and assented both to what was written by the most holy Archbishop Leo and to this ecumenical council, I too judge him worthy of the episcopate.20

e rest of the bishops reportedly agreed, asking only that Ibas once more anathematize Nestorius and his doctrine, a demand he resisted at first, but then acquiesced in, though with additions that showed where he really stood: ‘Anathema to [Nestorius], and to Eutyches, and to whoever says one nature. And I anathematize everyone who does not believe as this holy council believes.’21 e cases of eodoret and Ibas show, among other things, how far imperial policy was willing to go in order to include even the extreme wing of the Antiochene fellowship, the Nestorians, in the re-united church at which it aimed, and how desperately difficult it found holding that together with those at the other end of the spectrum who reverenced Cyril and his new-formulae faith. rough Chalcedon it had done its best for the Antiochenes, for instance by seeing that the whitewashing narrative of the 448 hearing on Ibas’ case was incorporated in the record. Despite its best efforts, though, the grand plan to include even such Nestorian Antiochenes as eodoret and Ibas on the basis of everyone’s supposed agreement with 17. 18. 19. 20. 21.

ACO II, I, 3, 143, p. 38, tr. ACC II, p. 303. ACO II, I, 3, 144–59, tr. ACC II, pp. 303–305. ACO II, I, 3, 161, p. 38, tr. ACC II, p. 305. ACO II, I, 3, 173, p. 41, tr. ACC II, p. 308. ACO II, I, 3, 180, p. 42, tr. ACC II, p. 309.

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the synodical Cyril stretched many Cyrillians’ tolerance past the breaking point. ey were not convinced by the inclusion of Cyrillian catchphrases, such as ‘hypostatic union’, in the Definition. Many were scandalized by what they saw as the thinly disguised attempt to establish Nestorianism in the name of Cyril, and fled to the heartland of Cyrillian resistance in Palestine and Egypt with dark tidings of the victory of heresy. e aermath would show that Ibas’ and eodoret’s names would continue to act as lightning-rods, attracting the suspicions and the resentment of Cyrillians unconvinced that there could ever be peace between Cyril and these notorious Antiochene bishops. A century later, eodoret’s writings against Cyril and Ibas’ Letter to Mari still had the power to arouse passions in the so-called ree-Chapters Controversy that ended with their condemnation.

C 17

A TROUBLED LEGACY We begin by summarizing what we know of how Chalcedon was brought to this end. Marcian had inherited from eodosius an intractable situation if one wanted to unite the entire church, including Rome, as Marcian did. Leo’s Tome, with its insistence that there were two natures of Christ aer the incarnation, could not be reconciled with the new-formulae Cyrillianism legislated by Ephesus II, at least not by any interpretation that had yet been thought of. Including Rome lay at the heart of the problem. Before turning to the grand scheme of calling an ecumenical council, Marcian had begun to install the Roman position at the centre, supporting the gathering of subscriptions to the Tome and the restoration of the memory of Flavian, Leo’s friend and ally. When the Council met, the first task he set for it was to remove what Rome could not accept by securing the condemnation of the new-formulae Cyrillianism represented by Eutyches, Dioscorus, and Ephesus II. e second task he set it involved turning to the strategy Flavian had tried and to some extent succeeded with at the Home Synod of 448, the strategy of claiming the mantle of Cyril for those who agreed with the two letters that were supposedly ‘synodical’, and that happened to say that the two natures of Christ persisted into the incarnation. e cumulative effect of accomplishing these two tasks was to create a seemingly moderate version of Cyrillian orthodoxy that could embrace Antiochenes willing to pay homage to Cyril, and Cyrillians willing to abandon the Cyril of the new formulae, and to join the restored Flavian under the mantle of a ‘synodical’ Cyril. e third task set by Marcian was to bring together the bishops who had responded as expected, and had supposedly discovered that they held the same in some sense Cyrillian faith, in order to produce a universal definition. He went to great lengths to include even such fervent Antiochenes as eodoret and Ibas within the company of those who were in agreement on a version of Cyrillian faith. By turning down the first proposed statement of faith, the one that said ‘out of two natures’, because Rome could not live with it, Marcian could not help making it impossible for many Cyrillians to live with the statement of faith that replaced it, the famous Definition. e resultant situation was at the very least unstable. e majority of bishops in the east, most of whom had stood with Dioscorus and Eutyches

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at Ephesus II, and who had resisted in the ways we have documented the push for universal adoption of Rome’s way of formulating orthodoxy – their resistance was, we have seen, intense and enduring – were faced with an immediate and stark decision. ey could knuckle under to, could subscribe to, a definition that was essentially foreign to what they had stood for. In that way they could retain their thrones. Alternatively, they could refuse to subscribe to the Definition, and dismiss Chalcedon as an heretical council, but they would then face condemnation and deposition. e schism that opened between the two groups, whom we may proleptically call Chalcedonians and anti-Chalcedonians, could not help but be deeply felt. Anti-Chalcedonians were bound to resent those who knuckled under aer resisting as unprincipled cowards and traitors. ose who had knuckled under were bound to react in one of two ways: some would eventually turn against Chalcedon and join the anti-Chalcedonian camp, others would look for ways to justify their capitulation at Chalcedon on theological or other grounds. Anti-Chalcedonians were bound to intensify their rhetoric against Chalcedon. It was not a matter of there being one side that was obviously the ongoing church, and a second group that broke away from it. ere was no new ‘Monophysite Movement’. ere were two groups, each deeply convinced it was within the ongoing church and represented its real faith; they were engaged in internecine warfare over which would ultimately define the church’s faith. For a long time it would be unclear which group was dominant. Aer all, the church had just witnessed a series of synods and councils, each reversing the one that preceded it. It had taken only one year for the Home Synod to be reversed, and only two years for Ephesus II to be reversed in turn; antiChalcedonians could reasonably hope that Chalcedon in its turn would be reversed. Chalcedonians, noting the same facts, would be all the more determined to make their choice permanent. Which would ultimately triumph was anybody’s guess. Marcian certainly was determined that the triumph should belong to the Chalcedonian side. He had worked very hard to bring about the Chalcedonian production of a statement of faith that would accommodate Rome and, at a stretch, enough of the eastern church to justify calling it a majority. He had, through his officials, directed, cajoled, and threatened the assembled bishops to that end. In the end, however, his effort to include even the most notorious Antiochenes had pushed some Cyrillians into schism, a fact that vitiated the victory Chalcedon was claimed to represent. Even so, Marcian was not conceivably going to permit his efforts to be nullified. He was bound to enforce Chalcedon’s decision, and so he did. He was bound to attempt to make it permanent. But an emperor was mortal. His successors would face the issues anew.

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e issues that Marcian and his successors faced were not those with which the controversy we have been following began. In the beginning they had involved a relatively minor matter, differences between Cyril and Nestorius over the use of a title for the Virgin Mary. By the time of Chalcedon, they had come to involve at their heart differences between those who claimed to be the true Cyrillians because of their allegiance to the new formulae proposed by Cyril ca. 433, and those who claimed to be true Cyrillians because of their allegiance to the Cyril of two letters said to be – because they were synodical – especially authoritative. No resolution looked possible, and it was many years before any strategy that had the potential to achieve a resolution was developed. In the meantime, the schism that resulted from Chalcedon’s decisions continued to lock the combatants in a battle over the two Cyrils. It was inevitable that both sides would rake over the coals of the past, offering rival interpretations of what the Union of 433 and the attacks of the Nestorians had meant, rival weightings of Cyril’s letters, and rival versions of Cyril’s intentions when dealing with John of Antioch, an exercise that continues to this day.

C 18

PUTTING TOGETHER A ROADMAP Our detailed investigation of the series of episodes that comprise the Nestorian Controversy as it unfolded, eventuating in the success in the west, but the spectacular ecumenical failure in the east that was the Council of Chalcedon, makes it possible to string them together into a narrative of the period 428–51 that connects the episodes, illuminating how one flows from another. Our narrative begins with the question of Cyril’s assumed authority. When the sixteenth year of his reign began in 428, he was the inheritor of a heroic narrative venerating the Council of Nicaea and its great champion, his predecessor Athanasius. He may or may not have been the inheritor also of his predecessor and uncle eophilus’ animus towards Constantinople; despite common assumptions, there is simply no evidence to establish Cyril’s stand pre-428 either way. A deeply dyed conservative, he desired only to stand with that ‘tradition of the fathers’ and against all innovation in doctrine. In this he shared the attitude of the majority of bishops, clergy, monks, and laypeople, who were willing to accord him authoritative status as the representative of that tradition. is made him a formidable contender when controversy broke out. Contrary to what is oen thought, he had no interest in arguing over christology, least of all over the precise meaning of doctrinal terms like ‘nature’ and ‘hypostasis’ that were later to become important, being content instead to use a variety of terms insouciantly to point to the divine-human duality of the one Christ. But Cyril’s was not the only narrative of the great struggle against Arianism, though it was the dominant one. In Antioch there were men with a different narrative with different heroes and even, it seems, a different creed, and these men did care very much about using terms precisely. ese were the small cadre of bishops influenced by their teacher, eodore of Mopsuestia, a self-conscious élite well aware that its ideas, while correct and precise, were not accessible to the less sophisticated. One of this tradition’s exponents, Nestorius, brought some of the eager ‘Young Turks’ from Antioch with him when he became Archbishop of Constantinople in the fateful year of 428, and they created a stir when they attacked the traditional use of the title theotokos (God-bearer) for the Virgin Mary.

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eir ideas were taken up by some monks of Egypt, to the distress of others, and eventually Cyril felt the need to address this doctrinal and pastoral problem in a long letter to the monks. For him, what was at stake was the Nicene Creed’s assertion that the second person of the Trinity ‘became man’, which he took to be literally true. He could not see how that did not entail, inevitably, Mary’s being theotokos, and vice-versa. Theotokos remained the only issue for him for several years, but because of its connection with the Creed that was the font of orthodoxy in his eyes, it was a crucially important one. Moreover, he could not see how one could consume the actual life-giving flesh of Christ in the eucharist if the Word had not actually become flesh. Cyril had not yet confronted Nestorius; he preferred to treat the unrest among the monks as an internal disciplinary issue for the Alexandrian patriarchy. It would not take much to arouse him on behalf of orthodoxy as he saw it, though, and the spark was ignited by Nestorius in a letter he wrote to Cyril aer reading the latter’s Letter to the Monks. Nestorius could have taken the hint from Cyril and le the latter to discipline his monks. One would have expected him, given his later actions, to do so. Keeping the Antiochene cadre’s innovative work safely out of the spotlight seems to have been the preferred policy of the senior members, a first suggestion of the motivation for eventually claiming the mantle of Cyril. For whatever reasons, Nestorius chose in the end to defend his brasher young colleagues, and that set him on a collision course with Cyril over theotokos. Cyril saw himself as the defender of the faith, and Nestorius as a dangerous innovator challenging the traditional faith. Cyril’s weapon of choice in the battle that ensued was the letter, a weapon he wielded to good effect in the recruitment of allies, writing sympathetically to persons across ecclesiastical ranks. He encouraged, too, the wide circulation of his letters. His status as the champion and representative of orthodoxy was thus greatly enhanced; he was obviously a formidable foe. Nestorius and his Antiochene colleagues, by contrast, wrote mostly to each other, and when they did write to others, they adopted a patronizing and superior tone not calculated to win them support. Cyril set out the orthodox faith as he saw it in his Second Letter to Nestorius, a letter to which Nestorius responded with a sarcastic and dismissively brief letter, confident as to the superiority of his theological understanding. Superior understanding was lost on Cyril, however. Despite vague language about unorthodox doctrine, what Cyril – now with the support of Rome – demanded was simple: Nestorius’ agreement to saying theotokos. It was a simple demand but, convinced as Cyril was that saying theotokos was intrinsic to Nicene orthodoxy, it was a demand he would

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not withdraw. e Antiochene circle, small and under threat, needed a way of escaping the bind they were in. ey needed a strategy. Here we come to one of the crucial forks in the road, a choice that meant ending up with Chalcedon, though a different choice might easily have taken events in quite a different direction. At this point (430–31) Nestorius’ friend and ally, John of Antioch, having consulted with the rest of the Antiochene leadership, wrote to Nestorius proposing a strategy for neutralizing Cyril. ‘Why not let Cyril think you agree with him?’, he proposed. He encouraged Nestorius to swallow his pride and admit that one could say theotokos and still be orthodox, and so placate Cyril. Nestorius wrote back to say he was willing to do as John proposed, though he reserved the right to ‘correct’ Cyril on several points. at might have resulted in at least an impasse. In the end it could not have made any difference as to outcome, as Cyril displayed superbly unfortunate timing by giving up on Nestorius before he could announce his change of position. Instead, Cyril joined Rome in issuing an ultimatum: say theotokos or be condemned and deposed on the joint authority of the two senior patriarchs. Again, there was a chance for peace had not Cyril, for good measure, sent his Third Letter to Nestorius laying out what Nestorius, whom Cyril suspected of being a slippery character likely to give an evasive response, would have to agree to, and what he would have to anathematize in twelve anathemas if he decided he wanted to be reconciled with him. Its terms were such that no Antiochene could agree to them, and what could have been a promising opening towards peace became in the end so very much the opposite that open rupture seemed imminent. e door opening directly to the possibility of peace on easy terms was closed. e Antiochene peace offensive on behalf of Nestorius failed before it was tried because of unfortunate timing. Gone was the chance of being reconciled with Rome and Alexandria at relatively slight cost. Instead the machinery for either condemning or exonerating him depending on his response to their ultimatum was grinding forward. In the light of the Third Letter and its anathemas, tainted intolerably as they were in Antiochene eyes by what looked to them like Apollinarian themes, it was a foregone conclusion that Nestorius could not and would not choose the way of capitulation, and neither, should it come to that, would any of his fellow Antiochenes – not if the anathemas were involved. Rather, they were bound to feel it their duty to attack Cyril as an Apollinarian. Once drawn in to this controversy, and once having recognized Cyril’s ‘heterodoxy’, they could hardly back down. Had the Emperor not intervened, it is hard to say how they would have fared against Cyril, backed up as he was by Rome. But he did intervene at this further fork in the road: he decided

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to call a council for the express purpose of bringing the controversy to an end. It was at Nestorius’ suggestion that eodosius exercised his prerogative and called the ecumenical council known as the Council of Ephesus. As they conceived it, a council would provide an opportunity for bishops to resolve their differences peaceably and come to agreement on a universal statement of faith. It seemed obvious to the theologically sophisticated Antiochenes that it would be possible to talk Cyril and his allies around to their point of view. Cyril, however, was not enthusiastic about a council. Not only did it interrupt his machinations against Nestorius, it came to him accompanied by a private letter from eodosius warning him not to upset the peace process. In a fatal move, he chose not to obey it, taking advantage of the weakness of the Emperor’s agent, Count Candidianus, and of the fact that Pope Celestine, the senior bishop and the obvious choice to be president of an ecumenical council, had appointed him in his place. ere is good evidence for believing that yet another and more desperately needed opportunity for reconciliation was attempted by the Antiochenes at this point. John of Antioch and his contingent seem to have planned to arrive some time aer the council opened, apparently with the purpose of allowing Nestorius an opportunity on his own to capitulate and make his peace very publically with Cyril. It would have to be dramatic if it was to lead Cyril to co-operate and leave aside the Third Letter. All for naught. Nestorius at the last moment refused to appear before an unfriendly council. When John et al. did arrive, they found a situation not at all as they had envisaged. Cyril had taken his chance: he presided, despite Candidianus’ objections, over a first, partial session of the council that made its main business the condemnation and deposition of Nestorius. e Antiochenes were understandably furious, assembled their own council, and hurled anathemas at Cyril and his Council. Another chance at reconciliation had been missed, this one because of Nestorius’ failure of nerve and Cyril’s eagerness to press ahead. e council eodosius had planned proceeded, but under these very unpromising circumstances. So unpromising were the circumstances that it is fair to say that what is called the Ecumenical Council of Ephesus never actually met. Two councils, Cyril’s Council and John’s Council met separately. eir split transformed the controversy again. e combatants inevitably found themselves driven to fight more and more over which council was the legitimate Council of Ephesus called by eodosius, and less and less over the issues it was intended to address. Arguments proliferated, each side finding multiple ways to establish its legitimacy and the illegitimacy of the other.

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Obviously apprehensive about how eodosius would receive what he had done, Cyril, for instance, did his best to present the conciliar session he had presided over as nothing other than the fulfillment of the Emperor’s instructions, but it was not easy to argue convincingly for this interpretation. He had, he claimed, been driven to condemn Nestorius by the canons and by Pope Celestine’s ultimatum. Nestorius wrote more convincingly to eodosius complaining that he had in good faith intended a council that worked peacefully and by consensus, but had been prevented by Cyril; he urged the Emperor to either reconstitute or dissolve the council. Vacillating between the two, eodosius le an atmosphere of uncertainty that encouraged more and more intense lobbying, with the emphasis shiing to charges of the dreaded innovation. Attempting to calm matters by isolating the parties and by placing their leaders under house arrest proved futile, as did deposing the latter: communications continued to slip through the net, and partisans on both sides refused to accept that their leaders had been deposed. New imperial officials were deployed, but to little effect. ere were instances of fisticuffs, especially in Constantinople, where both sides had allies. Attempts were made to win supporters away from rival groups. What had begun as the condemnation of opposition leaders became condemnation of their allies too. John of Antioch, for whom Cyril had entertained a certain amount of hope, fell under condemnation for being a Nestorian. Cyril claimed, on the basis of his alliance with Celestine, that he effectively represented the universal church, east and west, whereas John represented only a small contingent of likeminded Antiochene bishops. Just who represented the Nicene Creed became a contentious issue, Cyril being attacked for adding to the creed his own Second Letter to Nestorius, John and the Antiochenes for using an alternative creed as a test of orthodoxy for penitents seeking reconciliation. Enormous bribes given to imperial officials by Cyril’s agents seemed to win a certain level of support from the court, but nothing lasting came of it. e Emperor continued to seek a resolution along the lines envisaged in the sacra calling the Council. e Antiochenes indicated some willingness to participate in that kind of eirenic and consensual council, but Cyril absolutely refused, partly for legal reasons: he could not do as he was asked – defend himself – without abandoning his claim to be the plaintiff. Both sides effectively refused, anyway, as both demanded that an impossible condition be met: the other side would have to abandon its ‘heretical’ position before there could be talks. Holding church services while under an order of deposition was a major issue, made all the more complex by the fact that leaders on both sides had been deposed. In the end eodosius abandoned his conciliar strategy for solving the schism

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by bringing the parties together to work out an agreed position. e parties were sent home with little decided beyond the deposition of Nestorius, a non-issue in any case because he had already resigned. What was made clear, though veiled, was eodosius’ conviction that the Antiochenes were essentially blameless; the blame belonged to Cyril. e next time a conciliar strategy was to be tried, at Chalcedon, it would aim at establishing a victory for one side, and the submission of the other to it; there would be no more unrealistic talk about a cordial coming to unity. Ephesus I having done nothing to resolve the schism in the church, eodosius could hardly avoid the responsibility of finding a different solution, which he attempted with the help of Antiochene advisors. Everything depended on them. No accommodation could be expected from Cyril; he refused to budge. eodosius’ new strategy was to work with just the two patriarchs, Cyril and John, towards agreement on a statement of faith, rather than with the whole church. To succeed, it would have to eliminate the threat of Cyril’s putative Apollinarianism to satisfy the Antiochenes, while accepting theotokos and the condemnation of Nestorius to satisfy Cyril. John had at hand a document his Council had prepared for discussion between the warring bishops at Ephesus, and when he was given the task of draing an agreed statement of faith seems to have adapted that document to the purpose. To the Antiochenes neither saying theotokos nor condemning Nestorius was still a central issue, but for Cyril both were preconditions for peace with John. John capitulated on both scores. Understanding his willingness to see Nestorius condemned has not been easy for sympathetic moderns, but now there is an explanation for this behaviour that had implications beyond the particular case of Nestorius, since it reveals a further development of the kind of Antiochene strategic thinking as to how to deal with Cyril that would culminate in claiming the mantle of Cyril even for Antiochenes like eodoret at Chalcedon. Nestorius himself, in a previously unnoticed passage, recommended to Antiochene colleagues in the person of Flavian of Constantinople that they divert Cyril’s attacks by pretending to condemn him (Nestorius); that would make them appear orthodox in Cyril’s eyes. Nestorius made it clear he fully intended thus to be a scapegoat in order to protect his colleagues and their conviction that the divine nature in Christ was impassible. What Nestorius proposed for his colleagues, and what John was practicing when he suddenly changed course and condemned Nestorius, was a development of the strategy of protective colouration. John would appear to agree with Cyril, and so protect himself and those who shared his persuasion. Eventually John was able to present a document to Cyril that he felt himself able to sign with only minor alterations, the famous Union of 433.

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Most of the document committed signatories to a set of Cyrillian commonplaces, including the admission that there was in Christ a union of two natures; the most difficult item came at the very end, the admission that theologians worked out which gospel text applied to which nature, an admission that, while no mention was made of Apollinarianism, decisively ruled out that heresy. at satisfied the Antiochenes’ central objection to peace with Cyril. at Cyril agreed to the inclusion of that statement, despite the fact that it contradicted the fourth anathema of his Third Letter to Nestorius, almost certainly can be put down to one thing, enormous pressure from eodosius to reach agreement on a statement. Peace between Cyril and John, and thus between them and the Emperor, seemed to have been achieved. But it only seemed to have been achieved. ‘Nestorians’ were about to change everything with the claim that the statement meant something quite different. e Union had two great weaknesses, first in that it was an agreement between only two individual patriarchs, and second in that it used ambiguous language on precisely the point destined to make Cyrillians uneasy. Its signing in 433 did not result in real peace; rather, it inaugurated a period of further unadmitted warfare, as each side tried to turn the Union document to advantage while preserving the surface appearance of peaceful agreement the Emperor insisted upon. Fissures appeared from the very start. Cyril maintained that he had only accepted, not agreed with, John’s way of putting doctrine. Meanwhile, John maintained that agreement to the Union did not entail condemning Nestorius, which many of his colleagues still resisted, but which Cyril demanded. Both had a stake in preserving the Union, not least because the Emperor saw it as the only genuine achievement resulting from the otherwise ineffectual Ephesus I. What no one foresaw was the sudden attack on Cyril of ‘Nestorians’, that is, Antiochenes who still refused to condemn Nestorius. It would transform the controversy in startling ways. e Nestorian attack had its roots in the affair of Ibas of Edessa, a conservative Antiochene on whose view Cyril, having been a convinced Apollinarian, capitulated when he signed the Union, and apologized for ever having said that there was one nature of Godhead and manhood in Christ. It was claimed that Cyril’s capitulation brought universal peace. Cyril did not see it that way: he was shocked and appalled to find his admission of two natures in Christ being interpreted as capitulation to his former foes of Antioch, and his supporters being urged to follow him into the Antiochene camp. is was far from Cyril’s own opinion of what had happened. It was also far from what the Antiochenes around John of Antioch held: they had accepted the strategy of protective colouration and disowned Nestorius in return for immunity; they were certainly not

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about to go to the ramparts for Nestorius against his wishes. Cyril concluded that he needed, not to back down on what he had subscribed to in the Union, but to explain what he himself meant when he spoke of two natures, as opposed to what Nestorians said he meant. is would not be easy, especially since his own supporters were made suspicious because his agreement in the Union was with someone they thought of as an enemy, John. But it had to be attempted, and so Cyril made the case. He interpreted the Union document as merely John’s apology for his former beliefs, though it was a substantially orthodox apology. On one central point at issue, Cyril explained that he said only that Christ was ‘out of two natures’. What he meant by that admission was that Christ was, to the eyes of the understanding, out of two natures before the Incarnation/ union – one recognized, that is, that divine and human realities were coming together – but there was only one incarnate nature of the Word of God aer the Incarnation/union. On the second point at issue, Cyril argued for the superiority, as a way of communicating Christ’s simultaneous unity and duality, of saying it all in a single phrase, ‘the Lord speaks both divinely and humanly’, rather than making separate assertions, one about Christ’s two natures, and the other about his one reality, either of which assertions by itself could easily lead to heresy, but which taken together captured fundamental orthodoxy. e claim that agreement had been reached in the Union had some basis in fact, then, but it was open to more than one interpretation. Cyril and John agreed, but superficially. Everything changed profoundly as a result of the Nestorian charge and Cyril’s attempt to counter it. For one thing, the Nestorian charge radically changed the direction taken in the attack on Cyril: until this point Antiochenes had attempted in one way or another to present the appearance of being Cyrillian; the Nestorians attempted, instead, to picture Cyril as being in actuality an Antiochene. For another thing, Cyril came up with new formulae that made the Nestorian argument impossible. e new formulae that emerged from this crisis for him were ‘out of two natures before the union’, ‘one nature aer the union’, and ‘one incarnate nature of the Word of God’. ey instantly became key distinctives for Cyrillians anxious to differentiate themselves from any Nestorian-identified phony ‘Cyrillians’ said to have converted to Antiochene ideas. If anything, the net effect was to make real reconciliation more difficult, especially as Cyril could not easily explain the new formulae, for which the word ‘nature’ seemed to be used ambivalently. It would be an apple of discord from this time on. When challenged over the seeming contradiction of saying both two natures and one nature, Cyril turned to the human paradigm: psychic and somatic natures become united in the one nature

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of a concrete human individual; just so, he said, the divine and human natures became united in the one nature of the concrete Jesus Christ. e importance of these developments cannot be overestimated. e adoption of the new formulae by Cyrillians reframed the whole controversy, for no Antiochene could accept the Union of 433 interpreted by the Apollinarian-sounding ‘one nature aer the union’; any genuine Antiochene insisted upon ‘two natures aer the union’. Unintentionally, the attack of the Nestorians, far from bringing peace through the submission of Cyril, had made the reconciliation of Antiochenes and Cyrillians almost impossible. e word ‘nature’ had up to this point not been the focus of controversy. Now it had at last moved to the centre of the stage as an essential issue engaging most of the infighting over the meaning of the Union of 433. Discussion of the new formulae was apparently forbidden by eodosius, but Cyrillians found other ways to challenge Antiochenes, one being a campaign against the memory of the fathers of Antiochene thinking, Diodore of Tarsus and eodore of Mopsuestia, for being Nestorian. is too was shut down by eodosius. Cyril’s death did not mark the end of hostilities, though; quite the contrary. ere were attacks on Cyrillians, of course, and then Cyril’s successor in Alexandria, Dioscorus, became involved. e conflict was spreading well beyond the two signatories of the Union. If the peace (really at best a ceasefire) brought by the Union was to be preserved, as the Emperor and many others hoped, something would have to be done. Something certainly had to be attempted if the Union was to be preserved or, better, strengthened. It was actually something quite brilliant and startling that was attempted next, the deployment of a strategy no doubt devised by a person or persons in the Antiochene camp. Again, a council of sorts was to be the agent of the desired change, though this time it was not an ecumenical council. Whoever invented it, Flavian, Archbishop of Constantinople, a practitioner by Nestorius’ own account of the latter’s strategy of adopting protective colouration, and therefore an Antiochene, was the key player putting it into effect. He was practiced at presenting himself as a Cyrillian so that he could pursue Antiochene goals under cover of that presentation, and that is exactly how he operated in this case. e brilliance of the strategy lay in the other half of his plan: he would take the line adopted by the Nestorians of demonstrating that Cyril actually accepted the Antiochene viewpoint, and he would prove it from undisputed texts of Cyril himself. e plan was to hold a show trial at which a representative Cyrillian supporter of the new formulae would be dramatically and very publically

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condemned, thus warning others of like persuasion to pull in their horns. e trial took place as part of the proceedings of a Home Synod of Constantinople presided over by Flavian, in the guise of hearing an appeal against the elderly Cyrillian monk, Eutyches. e strategy called for Eutyches to be charged with the last thing he would have expected: that he had not been true to Cyril and the tradition of the fathers. is could be ‘proven’, the prosecution maintained, by referring to two texts of Cyril, the Second Letter to Nestorius, insouciant about christological language, and Laetentur Coeli’s Formula of Reunion (though the latter had not actually been written by Cyril, but by a person or persons in John of Antioch’s circle) in both of which ‘Cyril’ admitted, or could be said to have admitted, that there were two natures aer the Incarnation, in contradiction of the new-formulae letters. e former of them having been read at and approved by Ephesus I, it enjoyed a certain privileged authority as ‘synodical’ that soon rubbed off on Laetentur Coeli. As synodical, it could be said that they trumped the letters that set out the new formulae, that in fact they authoritatively represented what Cyril taught. Using Cyril thus against Cyril, and having settled ahead of time the fate of Eutyches, the pseudo-Cyrillian Flavian was able to arrange it so that ‘out of two natures before the union’ and those who said it were condemned – in the name of Cyril! (is was something more than the defensive strategy of protecting oneself with protective colouration; this was fully to claim the mantle of Cyril for those who privileged a certain set of writings, to the exclusion in this case of those who privileged the rival new-formulae letters). e crucial point was ‘aer the union’; contrary to a popular misconception, Flavian’s willingness to say ‘out of’ was of no particular significance. What mattered was that he said ‘aer the union’, and claimed the mantle of Cyril for that expression. at was what the whole trial was about. ose acting for the Flavian position did their best to obscure even the fact that Cyril had authored the phrase ‘out of two natures before the union’, and to suggest that to accept ‘one incarnate nature’ was to mix the two natures of Christ into one, that is, Monophysitism. ey also argued that Christ’s consubstantiality with God the Father, on one hand, and with the Virgin Mary on the other, necessitated two natures aer the Incarnation. Eutyches, a man in extreme old age, a sufferer from long-sightedness denied the opportunity to have his personal statement of faith read, was easily made to look like a simple-minded heretic. He was deprived of priestly rank and of headship of his monastery, and excommunicated. It is worth highlighting a second time the momentous change the Home Synod represented: Antiochenes, who had all along sought to protect

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themselves by strategies such as protective colouration that enabled them to pass themselves off as acceptably Cyrillian – that is, they tried to defend themselves by giving the appearance of thinking as Cyril did – now were boldly claiming that it was he who had come to think as they did. In so doing they had set up their version of Cyril, and opposed it to the rival faction’s version. From now on the controversy would no longer be a controversy between Antiochene and Cyrillian, but between versions of Cyril, the Antiochene-sounding Cyril of the ‘synodical’ letters, and the Cyril of the new formulae. Which had the real right to claim the mantle of Cyril? New-formulae Cyrillians were not generally taken in by the Home Synod’s strategy of claiming the mantle of Cyril for ‘two natures aer the Incarnation’, the key doctrine insisted upon by Antiochenes. ey had had fieen years of observing and countering Antiochene schemes, and ample time to observe Antiochene champions like Ibas who were patently supporters of Nestorius and enemies of Cyril and Cyrillians. e condemnation of Eutyches by the machinations of such people excited a hostility so fierce that the church and empire were threatened with an even deeper schism than that which obtained before the Home Synod had tried to resolve it by engineering a victory for the Antiochene side and the repression of new-formulae Cyrillians. Dioscorus, Cyril’s successor in Alexandria, was ready to lead the Cyrillian reaction. Yet another dramatic change of direction was at hand. eodosius – not the weak emperor he is oen taken to be, but a man ready to face reality and to take decisive action, even if it meant reversing himself – realized he had badly misjudged the situation, and reversed his policy: he now looked for a resolution in terms of a victory for the Cyrillian, and repression of the Antiochene, side. To achieve it, he returned to the strategy tried at Ephesus, the holding of a council, but with this difference: the bishops at the Second Council of Ephesus would not be le to establish its agenda and conduct its sessions by themselves. Only three months aer the closing of the Home Synod he issued sacra convoking a second Council of Ephesus that was fully ecumenical by all the usual markers. He made his intentions clear in a letter of direction, and he made Dioscorus as president responsible for the outcome. Antiochene bishops were infected with Nestorianism, he said. ey had effectively created a new creed when they insisted on two natures aer the union, which meant that they, and what they stood for, needed to be suppressed. is was arranged according to the legalities: Flavian as judge, and Eusebius of Dorylaeum as prosecuting attorney at Ephesus I would become the accused as the new Council heard Eutyches’ appeal for redress against corrupt prosecution

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by them. Hearings held before the Council gave Eutyches’ champions a chance to challenge the official minutes (prepared by Flavian’s office) on telling points to do with Eutyches’ and Flavian’s stands at the Home Synod, particularly over ‘two natures aer the union’. e Council’s judgement, naturally, was going to go against Flavian and Eusebius, and they would be duly condemned and deposed. It was in reality to be a judgement against their attempt to enshrine a synodical Cyril, and in favour of a new-formulae Cyril as the standard of orthodoxy. A second petition from Eutyches revealing the fact that Eutyches was ‘already deposed’ before the Council even met was also entered. With a clear agenda before them, the bishops met. Since the matters under judgement concerned orthodoxy and heterodoxy, they decided first to state what the orthodox faith was, so as to be able to determine which class Flavian’ and Eusebius’ novelties belonged to. e orthodox faith, they said, was the faith of Nicaea confirmed by Cyril’s Second Letter to Nestorius. How Eutyches had been treated at the Home Synod was looked at in this light, with the obvious conclusion. When the synodical letters came up in the course of reading the acts of the Home Synod, Eustathius of Berytus enunciated for Ephesus II the Cyrillian understanding: Cyril corrected earlier misunderstandings of where he stood by providing a key to understanding him properly. e new-formulae letters were that key. is was the stance adopted by the Council: no one was to say ‘two natures aer the union’. at was a novelty, and it was anathema. As a novelty, it stood condemned by the so-called seventh canon of Ephesus, and it was on these grounds that Flavian and Eusebius were condemned. Roman legates protested. When they tried to have Leo’s famous Tome read, it was received, but somehow it was not read. No one was willing to take responsibility for this, but Dioscorus’ name is plausibly suggested. Flavian had written to Leo attacking Eutyches, and the two were allies. is placed them in opposition to the Council’s decision to exonerate him. Flavian appealed to Leo through his legate, but was not heard in the uproar with which the Council’s first session closed. Complete victory seemed to have been won by Dioscorus and his allies. e Antiochene troublemakers were deposed. But they were not apt to accept the decisions of Ephesus II. Rome was deeply unhappy too. It was becoming clearer and clearer, despite the earlier alliance between Cyril himself and Pope Celestine, that the traditional Roman christology, in that it maintained two natures aer the Incarnation, sounded Antiochene, not Cyrillian. Rome was thus more naturally allied with Antiochenes like Flavian than with genuine Cyrillians. With the suppression of the relatively small Antiochene resistance, and the widespread approval for a new-formulae

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Cyrillianism in the east, prospects for a stable peace looked promising – until one looked west to Rome. How was Rome to be incorporated into any settlement reached in the east? eodosius died before he could address that question. at was le to his successor, Marcian, and a very different council. e whole affair of Eutyches has had unintended effects on how the bigger picture of events leading up to Chalcedon came to be viewed. One of them is history’s tendency to assume that there was such a thing as the new heresy of Eutychianism, its basic position being Monophysitism. e narrative about the rise of this supposed new heresy served the purposes of those who took a certain view of Chalcedon. On their view, Chalcedon was needed to correct this new heresy, as Ephesus I had been necessary to correct the earlier new heresy of Nestorianism. Our analysis opposes that view. ere was no new heresy of Eutychianism, nor was Chalcedon, supposedly a new council for a new challenge, actually called to deal with Eutychianism. Chalcedon was just the next attempt to deal with the same old set of problems. It was part of the evolution of the controversy we have been dealing with all along, not a revolutionary new departure, but it was also the last gasp of the strategy of claiming the mantle of Cyril. When eodosius died in July of 450, he was succeeded by the racian general Marcian. Marcian was a usurper who owed a debt to Rome. He had other ties to Rome too. He was determined to include Rome in any bringing of the church back to unity, and that meant incorporating Rome’s traditional two-natures-aer-the-union christology into whatever universal statement of faith the churches might be united under. He was faced with the problem of squaring Rome’s views with those of the Cyrillians who dominated the east; succeeding Ephesus II so closely, as Chalcedon did, meant that the majority of the bishops participating in the latter had only two years earlier participated in the former, where they had shown themselves to be fiercely Cyrillian. Pope Leo was nonetheless determined to see Chalcedon roll back Ephesus II, whatever the east thought, to see Eutyches re-condemned, to see Flavian’s memory restored, and to have his Tome recognized. Work on all of these fronts using papal authority where it was recognized got under way immediately; Rome did not see the need for a council. Marcian agreed with Rome’s agenda, but insisted that only an ecumenical council could achieve anything so ambitious, the chief challenge being to convince eastern bishops that the Tome and Cyril were not, despite appearances, incompatible. is was the task facing the Council of Chalcedon when it met in September of 451.

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Rome became reconciled to the idea of an ecumenical council, but saw it as doing no more than consolidating what she claimed she had already established on her own authority, the annulment of Ephesus II, the deposition of Dioscorus, the reinstatement of Eusebius, the restoration of the memory of Flavian, and the establishment of the version of orthodoxy embodied in the Tome. It was a daunting challenge. Marcian realized that, to carry the east, there would have to be a much more complex process than the one used at Ephesus II, made simple by the small size of the Antiochene fellowship and the omission of Rome, had been. us, when the Council opened, there was a tussle over who would preside and set the agenda; the imperial officials to whom Marcian had committed the running of the Council according to his agenda came out on top. Similarly, when it became clear that the eastern bishops would not accept eodoret’s being seated as a bishop in good standing, despite his restoration by Rome, it was the officials who calmed the near-riot by seating him temporarily as an accuser. e real business of the Council began with responding to Eusebius’ petition on his own and the dead Flavian’s behalf claiming corrupt prosecution at Ephesus II. Sidestepping the question of what orthodox faith entailed – a question the Council was judged not yet ready to deal with; the plan was to get Dioscorus out of the way first – the Council proceeded to examine the acts of Ephesus II. Taking Eutyches to have been a genuine heretic on the basis of ideas imputed to him at the Home Synod, the imperial strategy was to raise doubts about Dioscorus’ orthodoxy by suggesting he was tainted by the ‘Eutychian heresy’. A different case was built against Dioscorus for the brutality with which he had supposedly forced unwilling bishops to support his agenda at Ephesus II. (ere is evidence of threats, but little of actual violence). e bigger case against Dioscorus turned on the Home Synod, Flavian, and Cyril. e acts of Ephesus II included the acts of the Home Synod concerning Eutyches; their reading at Chalcedon played a central role for the imperial agenda. With Eutyches tainted by heresy, the martyred Flavian became a key point of contention. A practitioner of the strategy of protective colouration like Flavian could be paraded as a martyr for Cyrillian orthodoxy while secretly serving his fellow Antiochenes’ agenda. His claiming of the mantle of Cyril for those like himself who agreed with the synodical Cyril could be deployed in support of Leo’s and the Antiochenes’ ‘two natures aer the union’ and against new-formulae language. Why had Dioscorus, by embracing Eutyches and attacking Flavian opposed the teachings of Cyril? When he pointed to Eustathius’ claim that Cyril had intended the new formulae to be the authoritative guide to what he thought, he was shouted down;

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that was what Eutyches said. Put that way, the bishops chose for the synodical letters and against Dioscorus, and for Flavian’s Cyrillian disguise of ‘two natures aer the union.’ (Problems in the text may even suggest that the Council voted for what they took to be Flavian’s position without reference to the ‘two natures aer the union’ formula, which the secretaries inserted in the minutes later to make it appear that they had explicitly adopted it). In the equivalent of letters of direction, Marcian told the bishops to meet (it was understood that, for the next session, bishops alone, without officials, could stand in judgement over a fellow bishop) to depose Dioscorus and those who had joined him in the conduct of Ephesus II; they were to write out what they individually believed, so long as it accorded with the faith of the fathers, specifically with the faith of the synodical Cyril; the strategy of claiming the mantle of Cyril for that version of the great man was very much at the heart of things. ey were reminded to take account of Leo’s Tome. In the end, Dioscorus was deposed, not on strictly doctrinal grounds, but fundamentally on the grounds that he failed to respond to three summons to appear before the Council. To this were added charges relating to minor alleged misdemeanours in Alexandria. Marcian and his advisors judged that the moment had come for the Council to act as he had envisaged: it was to proclaim a statement of faith the whole church could agree upon, thereby bringing into agreement Antiochenes and Romans on one side, and Cyrillians on the other. However, when they were asked to produce the faith they had been asked to think about, the bishops refused: Ephesus I had forbidden the production of new creeds. e officials suggested a committee of senior bishops deliberate about a statement of faith, whereas the bishops asked for a postponement while they came up with a plan. e postponement was granted, showing how determined the Emperor remained to bring together the full range of bishops, no matter how long it took. In the meantime, the officials proposed a reading of the creeds (Nicaea and Constantinople I) in the hope of establishing a precedent, Constantinople I, for making additions to the creed, thus laying the groundwork for in some way adding the Tome, as Rome was eager to do. In a crucial move, the Home Synod was revisited, though it had failed to convince the Cyrillian side once. It still looked promising as a way of claiming the mantle of Cyril’s authority for the synodical version of his teaching, and for the Tome because it agreed with it. Resistance to the Tome if its insistence on two natures aer the union were emphasized remained fierce. Many eastern bishops had, under Roman pressure, subscribed to it, but only as being in a general way in accord with Cyril. Another postponement

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was granted, but it was clear in which direction things were moving: the time was used to ‘educate’ recalcitrant bishops as to how Leo was in accord with Cyril because, like John of Antioch in 433, he affirmed both the dual natures and the unity of Christ; he did not separate the natures. e bishops were next asked to say what they had resolved about the faith. e Roman legates said it comprised three elements: the Creed of Nicaea/Constantinople, Cyril’s explanation, and Leo’s Tome. e officials put this contentious assertion aside in favour of an anodyne statement by the other bishops to the effect that the historic creeds were in harmony with the Tome. Egyptian bishops who were prevented from voting until a new patriarch was elected (they voted by tradition en bloc), asked for and got an extension, a fact best explained, too, by eagerness on the Emperor’s part to leave the door open to universal participation in the final statement of faith. ere were other resisters, particularly monks. Continued opposition to elevating the Tome to creedal status led to the proposal that it be considered, not an addition to, but – on the model of the Second Letter to Nestorius at Ephesus – an ‘interpretation’ of the Nicene Creed. With the fih session the time allowed for postponements was over. ose commissioned in the second session with the task of draing a statement of faith or definition were called upon to report. e report they submitted was – shockingly – found by the officials to be unacceptable, and it was suppressed. However, some information survived. We know that it included the words ‘out of/from two natures’, and enough about it to conclude that it did not specify whether those two natures existed before or aer the union. Its vagueness and lack of precision troubled officials, Antiochenes, and Romans while pleasing almost everyone else because it le the door open for both those who said ‘before’, and those who said ‘aer’ without forcing the issue. is was precisely the unclarity Antiochenes despised and Rome would never accept: orthodoxy meant saying ‘aer’, and that was that. e eastern bishops, however, were prepared to go on supporting the report’s statement. ey vociferously opposed any other proposal. As the controversy noisily went on on the floor of the Council, the officials quietly went ahead with the imperial agenda. ey called together a committee of representative bishops, took them aside, and had them produce what to this day stands as the Definition of Chalcedon, presumed to have been established authoritatively by an ecumenical council. It is impossible not to see that in fact the Definition was not what the majority preferred, but what the Emperor through his officials insisted upon as the price of including Rome. e prologue to the Definition situated it in a historical sequence aimed at justifying the Council’s actions: heresies have arisen in times

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past, and as each one arose the Emperor called a council that expanded the original Creed to deal with the new heresy. Now the emergence of the new heresy of Eutychianism has called for yet another expansion on the same pattern. e ‘synodical’ character claimed for two of Cyril’s letters harmonized with this line of thinking, and Leo’s Tome fell neatly into it: it followed naturally from the reading of those letters in the acts of the Home Synod, and it was claimed that the Council was acting entirely appropriately in attaching the Tome to the Definition. at was how it excluded the Eutychian error of maintaining a Christ out of two natures only before the Incarnation and one incarnate nature aerwards. Newformulae language was excluded without any mention of its author, Cyril; his name was associated entirely with the synodical letters. Chalcedon, it was being asserted, rightly wore the mantle of Cyril. Despite many minor borrowings from Cyril to soen its effect, the Definition clearly stated that Christ was ‘acknowledged in two natures’, meaning two natures aer the union. If this Definition were to be adopted by Chalcedon, that council would plainly show that it stood essentially with the Romans and Antiochenes, with no room being le for the Cyril of the new formulae, but lots of room for the synodical Cyril. e officials, no doubt aware of how problematic this Definition would be for many Cyrillians, hurriedly called for a vote. It was, predictably, approved. It was already very much a moot question whether Chalcedon’s attempt to stretch the mantle of Cyril so far that it could be said to cover in supposedly universal unity Antiochenes, Rome in fully assertive mode on behalf of Leo’s Tome, and Cyrillians willing to limit their Cyrillianism to that of the two synodical letters, stood any chance of success. e terrible news that Chalcedon was selling the faith out to ‘Nestorianism’ was already being spread by Cyrillian loyalists. Marcian was determined, nonetheless, to stretch the mantle of Cyril yet further: he was determined that even those who had not only disagreed with Cyril, but had also famously attacked him, should be included. He sought, that is, the rehabilitation of eodoret and Ibas by their inclusion under the mantle of Cyril. Aer the failure of the attempt to seat eodoret among the Council’s bishops, he sat quietly through the first seven sessions, apart from dropping remarks that show he was doing his best to sound like a Cyrillian. When his status became the topic of discussion at the eighth session, he was challenged: was he not a Nestorian? He was forced by outcries to anathematize Nestorius, despite his reluctance to do so – he had never adopted the strategy of protective colouration. His attempts to explain his position were drowned out. e acts suddenly and implausibly have

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the officials say that all doubts have been resolved, and all of the bishops have declared eodoret worthy of restoration to his see, another instance of imperial interference no doubt. He had been slipped under the mantle of Cyril, but it was not clear that he could be kept there. For years Ibas had likewise been famous for attacking Cyril and calling him a heretic. At the time of the Home Synod he was tried by a panel of bishops, but managed, by a combination of claiming the mantle of Cyril and adopting the strategy of protective colouration, to pass himself off as a Cyrillian and an enthusiast for the First Council of Ephesus. At Chalcedon, with Cyrillians’ tolerance stretched to the limit and beyond it, Ibas’ fame as Cyril’s enemy – his Letter to Mari was there for all to see – made accepting the panel’s decision a hard sell: they did not believe Ibas had really abandoned Nestorianism. He claimed he had never called Cyril a heretic aer the signing of the Union of 433. An argument was made for his orthodoxy on the grounds that he had been condemned by the now-vilified Ephesus II. Once he had anathematized Nestorius and Eutyches, he was approved by the Council. e cases of eodoret and Ibas show how eager Marcian was to include even the extreme wing of the Antiochene fellowship in the reunited church he envisaged. at eodoret, at the beginning of our period an open enemy of Cyril, was now being declared to be at one with Cyril, shows just how far from its starting-point in 428 the controversy had travelled. To achieve his ambitious goal, Marcian had to stretch the mantle of Cyril beyond the limits of credulity on the part of many Cyrillians. Already suspicious of the relatively more easily dealt with Leo’s right to claim the mantle of Cyril, they were not likely to be convinced that people such as eodoret and Ibas, who had gone so far as to attack Cyril openly, had that right. Marcian’s insistence that Rome and her way of stating christological doctrine be non-negotiable in the universal settlement he envisaged as the work of Chalcedon posed a nearly insuperable obstacle to achievement of that vision. ey could not in any simple way be reconciled with newformulae Cyrillianism. A significant resistence persisted. It focused on the Cyril of the new formulae as its doctrinal guide and fought against abandoning the first, Cyril-friendly version of the Definition, despite efforts to eradicate it by securing the condemnation of Ephesus II, Dioscorus, and Eutyches. is was the dark side of the claimed success of the Council. e strategy of claiming the mantle of Cyril for those who embraced a synodical Cyrillianism, thereby creating what could be marketed as a ‘moderate’ Cyrillianism, remained the most effective positive approach to including Cyrillians in the Chalcedonian fold, but the insistence that

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Rome and even the most radical Antiochenes be considered among the Cyrillians, stretched things to and beyond the limit: claiming the mantle of Cyril, brilliant strategy though it was, ultimately failed when it was subjected to intolerable pressure of this intensity. e situation following Chalcedon was unstable, if not chaotic. Bishops were forced to decide between knuckling under to the imperial agenda and retaining their thrones, and being dethroned if they resisted it. What had been opposing factions within the Council devolved into the proand anti-Chalcedonian factions whose perpetuation of the controversy begun in 428 took the form of opposing one version of Cyril to the other, a positive attitude towards Chalcedon to a negative one. e reality of this internecine warfare over the shared legacy of Cyril was a far cry from the confected conflict between orthodox who properly understood Cyril and the tradition, and the newly-arisen ‘Monophysite Movement’. It was not at all obvious that things would remain as they were while Marcian reigned: council had succeeded rival council with bewildering speed; things might reverse themselves at any time, emperors might die. As time went by, the controversy focused more and more on history, rival claims being argued as to what Cyril intended in his letters, what the Union of 433 meant, what the Nestorian attackers were about, and so on. Arguments that once focused on doctrine have become arguments about history. In our Epilogue we glance at the aermath of the Nestorian Controversy and the Council of Chalcedon as it took shape in the sixth century, the shape that was to be their lasting heritage.

C 19

CONCLUSION e road to Chalcedon from the outbreak of the Nestorian Controversy has proved, if we are at all correct, to be quite different from the one traditionally envisaged. Our narrative of how that road was taken is not a simple, straightforward one. Chalcedon was not the attempt of the honestly orthodox to address a new heresy proposed by Eutyches. ere was in fact no such new heresy, just the imagining of a heresy by one faction as a means of suppressing the other in a plot that failed. Our principals in fact plot and strategize as human beings – even bishops and emperors – always have done, and always do. ey sometimes pretend to maintain one thing, when really they stand for another if that serves their purpose. Progress, if one dares to think of it as such, was usually made by indirection; the path taken was seldom if ever a straight one. Take the case of Flavian, practitioner of the strategy of protective colouration championed by Nestorius, and presider over a Home Synod that pretended to be a disinterested examination of Eutyches’ orthodoxy, but was in fact a trompe l’œil concealing the fact that the outcome had already been decided. Take the case of the Emperor eodosius who, faced with the backlash against Flavian’s and that same Home Synod’s condemnation of Eutyches, reversed himself, abandoned his policy of supporting Nestorius, and supported Dioscorus and Ephesus II, even pretending that he had warned Flavian against pursuing the case against Eutyches rather than, as had actually been the case, conspiring with him in it. Take the case of Cyril, forced by imperial pressure to agree that one could legitimately speak of two natures aer all – which everyone would have recognized as meaning two natures aer the Incarnation – implying he had really all along meant not that, but two natures only before the Incarnation. It is out of actions like these that our narrative is formed. As a result the story of how our controversy evolved between 428 and 451 is certainly neither a straightforward nor an improving tale. Neither is this the story of a high-minded bishop’s quest for more precise theological language defining christology. e Cyril we have met, apart from developing the new formulae he used – we think out of desperation – to attempt to meet the charge of having adopted an Antiochene understanding himself, consistently opposed any innovation in understanding

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or terminology. It was a stance widely held in the east. In fact what was argued about throughout the period, what bishops argued about at the great councils of the church, what emperors attempted to chivvy the bishops at councils into enunciating, was not what was the correct understanding of Christ, but who most accurately represented what the fathers enunciated about Christ. at was how you could tell who had the right understanding of Christ, and that right understanding came down most oen to what the Council of Nicaea had enunciated in its creed. Antiochenes, it might be objected, certainly were interested in theological questions and terminology, and that is so. eir one chance to discuss theological questions and terminology was Ephesus I, at which they had imperial backing, but Cyril refused to engage with them and the Council failed to achieve anything. For the most part the Antiochenes we have met in this period were anxious if anything to avoid publically discussing such things, indeed were intent on concealing what they were up to – recall again Nestorius’ recommended strategy of adopting protective colouration. ey did not publically differ from Cyril’s sympathizers so much on theology as on what the fathers could be said to have really taught. One might say that the councils were, in this way, battles mainly about history, not about theology. Nor is our narrative the record of the straightforward drive to an inevitable, predestined destination, Chalcedon’s Definition. Quite the reverse. It was, rather, a hit and miss affair that might, by the merest accident, have turned out quite differently. It was theotokos that had set off the whole controversy, for instance, yet it was only by accident that Young Turks’ decision to display their argumentative prowess on this topos blew it up into an empire-wide controversy. It follows that, had John of Antioch and the rest of the Antiochene leadership decided to urge Nestorius to give up his opposition to theotokos just a little sooner than they did, the Third Letter to Nestorius, with its indigestible anathemas, might never have been sent, the two parties might have avoided clashing, and everything might have unfolded differently. Had Nestorius been braver, and followed the plan of appearing alone before the Council of Ephesus (that is, Cyril’s Council) to declare his acceptance of theotokos, John of Antioch could have arrived in Ephesus late to find himself and his colleagues, as planned, at peace with Cyril instead of at war. Had Cyril been less insouciant about language, and more careful about what he said when he wrote his Second Letter to Nestorius, so that he was not on record as admitting that two natures persisted aer the Incarnation, or had he not asked that the letter be approved by the Council, the whole strategy of claiming the mantle of Cyril would surely not, without these strong grounds, have suggested

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itself to the Antiochenes, the Nestorians would not have been able to lay their charge against Cyril, and who knows what would have happened instead? Had Marcian not owed a debt to Rome, or had eodosius not fallen off his horse, things, again, might easily have taken a different course. Chalcedon was what it was, not as a result, so far as sober history can tell, of a clear call of destiny, but as a result of a series of accidents, and the failure of strategies attempted on both sides. Nor is our story the customary tale of church leaders resolving their differences by means of her unique and appropriate mechanism, the ecumenical council of bishops. Rather, the story of how events evolved in this period is inevitably the story of the church and the empire struggling with church issues, with the emperor more oen than not playing the lead role in reconciling ecclesiastical combatants. Our story inevitably involves the Emperors eodosius and Marcian, both of whom were deeply involved in the affairs of the church, particularly when those threatened to fracture the Empire. eir one all-important job was to hold the Empire together, a job they performed with the utmost seriousness. e general tendency of scholarship in the west has been to dismiss eodosius as a bit of a vacillating weakling, and to favour Marcian for making sure that orthodoxy (as it came to be understood in the west, of course) triumphed at Chalcedon. Our analysis accepts neither. Dealing with the fractious church was extremely difficult, with little to go on by way of precedent (we lack the collections of documents we have for Ephesus and Chalcedon). eodosius, as we have seen him, tried one intelligent option at Ephesus I, letting the church decide its own affairs with little direction from the Court, but that ended with a yet more fractured church. Ephesus I achieved precisely nothing. eodosius tried another intelligent option with the Home Synod of 448, the option of operating behind the scenes to see Eutyches condemned and thereby to strengthen the Antiochene side and repress Dioscorus and his Cyrillian allies, but it too failed, only arousing yet further the latter’s hostility. Finally, he turned back to the one strategy that seemed to be le to him, and that just possibly might succeed if attempted with vigour and cleverness: convoking another council, Ephesus II, putting the whole weight of the empire behind the majority in the east led by Dioscorus, and suppressing the Antiochenes. We cannot know whether this last approach would have remained successful had not eodosius unexpectedly died. From one point of view we might think of our period as involving a series of experiments by emperors to discover, if possible, how the Empire could be held together despite the church. At any rate, Marcian seems to have learnt from eodosius’ experiments. He too called a council, but he took an even more forceful role

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in directing it by having his officials preside. He was also more ambitious about what he aimed at: the reconciliation of Cyril’s party, the Antiochenes, and Rome, all three. He was, in fact, so determined to bring the whole church together under one definition of the faith that he had his officials peremptorily dismiss a definition that the majority in the east strongly favoured, but would never have been accepted by Rome or the Antiochenes. For good or for ill, the road to Chalcedon was at first the road to a definition of faith that the majority in the east resisted, and that was at the same time insisted upon by Marcian in the interests of including Rome and the Antiochenes as well as the Cyrillians in the hoped-for settlement. Cowed into subscribing to the Definition the officials had bullied the bishops into accepting, the bishops of Chalcedon who remained at the Council were parties to a distinct advance in imperial domination of the church. e so-called Monophysite Church, composed of those who refused to accept Marcian’s direction, became without intending it perhaps the first champion of the church’s freedom from the state. By construing these conscientious objectors as Eutychian heretics and therefore outside the church, rather than disenfranchised members within the church, those who voted unanimously for the Definition were able to see that vote as a complete victory for orthodoxy. Woven through the warp and woof of the whole controversy was the unequal struggle between Cyril and his sympathizers across the eastern church on the one hand, and the Antiochene cadre on the other. Cyril dominated the controversy, but not for the reasons usually adduced. He was not original, not some kind of theological genius who set out for the first time a profound christological truth. He was not, so far as we can tell, outstanding for his supposed willingness to bully in the manner of his uncle eophilus. He was, granted, a forceful advocate on behalf of orthodoxy as he saw it, and a formidable foe of those who thought otherwise. He did not, as the most optimistic of contemporary scholarship would have us believe, show the way to peace by, in his maturity, coming to the awareness that he should abandon the one-nature formulae he had early favoured, and accept the truth of Antiochenes’ two-natures language. He in fact did the reverse, coming to one-nature formulae only in response to Nestorians’ claim that, in the Union of 433, he had accepted an Antiochene version of two natures. No, Cyril’s role was what it was because he had achieved and shown a genius for consolidating his authoritative status as the gold standard of orthodoxy. Demonstrating one’s consonance with him guaranteed one’s orthodoxy. e Antiochenes, however, were mostly an unknown quantity; they pursued their arcane studies in the privacy of the shadows. In the contest between the two, Cyril had the

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easier task, since he could mostly stand firm on his established reputation; the Antiochenes, on the other hand, had the unenviable task of trying to find ways to prove that they were in harmony with him while at the same time retaining teaching that was not at all like his. ey did not take long to realize that the negative tactic of attacking Cyril directly, or trying to have his letters suppressed, was not likely to be effective. Instead, they began, in the opening phases of the controversy, to invent and then improve ways of presenting themselves that made them appear to agree with him. So John of Antioch in 431 urged Nestorius to abandon his opposition to saying theotokos. So Nestorius urged his fellow Antiochenes to condemn him as a way of presenting the appearance of standing with Cyril. In these first iterations of the strategy we have called claiming the mantle of Cyril, that is, Antiochenes adopted ways of changing the perception of where they stood in ways that made the world safer for them. ere was, of course, another, trickier possibility: they could seek ways of changing the perception of Cyril, not of themselves: they could attempt to convince the church, not that they were more like him than had been thought, but that he was more like them. It was along these lines that the most sophisticated iteration yet of claiming the mantle of Cyril emerged. In 448 this newly-articulated strategy was attempted. Flavian of Constantinople and a Home Synod over which he presided were the ones who attempted it. e key to it all was Cyril’s inadvertent language – we argue that he was in fact habitually insouciant about theological language – in his Second Letter to Nestorius, and in the Union document he had suscribed to. He had openly said in the former, and as near as never mind in the latter, that there were two natures aer the Incarnation. ese two ‘synodical’ texts (the former had been approved by Ephesus I), it was insisted, placed Cyril in the Antiochene camp. He was more like them than had been thought, and that opened the way, for those who laid this charge, to claim there was, under the mantle of Cyril, substantial agreement in the church on a two-natures-aer-the-Incarnation christology. Despite the reversal by Ephesus II of what Flavian and the Home Synod attempted with the strategy of claiming the mantle of Cyril, Marcian was willing to attempt it again, backing it up with forceful direction of the bishops by the state, and undertaking an even more ambitious agenda: not just Cyrillians and the Antiochenes around John of Antioch were to be united under a Definition that supposed both were united under the mantle of Cyril: Rome, standing uncompromisingly upon Leo’s Tome, and even the most hostile of the Nestorians, eodoret and Ibas, were to be included as well. For many Cyrillians these last proved too much to

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accommodate. From their point of view, a Cyril whose teaching had been stretched so far beyond its original sense, or had – in the case of certain letters written in response to the Union and the charges of Nestorians – been simply ignored was not the real Cyril. What Chalcedonians presented as the authentic teaching of Cyril was really a disguised Nestorianism, they protested. e protesters broke from the Chalcedonian churches, becoming first a loyal opposition expecting to bring the church back to its senses, but eventually a separate church convinced it was the true church. Before that happened, but aer a considerable interval, attempts would be made to revive the strategy of claiming the mantle of Cyril in a more sophisticated form, that is, by arguing that, while the two sides were separated by different christological formulae, they were actually the same if one dug out the same, true inner meaning beneath the words. But that is a different story of which we can give only a hint here.

E

SIXTHCENTURY RETROSPECTIVES: NETS, PRATTLINGS, AND YAPPING EPISTLES e Council of Chalcedon le the west satisfied that orthodoxy had been established with due respect paid to Rome. It le the east deeply conflicted over Chalcedon’s Definition of Faith (‘the decrees of Chalcedon’) and Leo’s Tome, and insecure about the future. e memory was fresh, aer all, of recent dramatic reversals: the Home Synod had established one position and delegitimized the popular Cyrillian stance of Eutyches, but it was itself immediately delegitimized by Ephesus II, which established the opposite position; within less than two years Chalcedon had in turn delegitimized Ephesus II and re-established the Home Synod’s position. Rome might ignore the implications, but neither bishops of the east nor emperors could share Rome’s confidence. Who among them, considering the very recent wild swings of imperial policy and church councils both, could have had much confidence that the situation was now stable, that Chalcedon had brought the period of instability to a close? Who among them, thinking about which bishops had taken what positions in the debates, could ignore the realities of ecclesiastical geography and expect all regions to join in a single stance for or against Chalcedon? e obvious question for them all was this: was Chalcedon, with the Tome, to be delegitimized in its turn, and Ephesus II re-established, as some hoped and as others feared? If so, in what regions? e attention of both Chalcedonians and anti-Chalcedonians during the second half of the fih century was fixed on the struggle for legitimacy, and neither side could imagine any other permanent outcome than its own victory over the other, or its defeat by it. A brief summary of imperial policy during that half-century must suffice.1 It was by no means consistent throughout except in its essential obsession with holding the empire together. Marcian was, of course, determined that Chalcedon should stand forever; he had, aer all, invested a great deal in that project. He suppressed opposition vigorously, but the short-term success of such methods could not conceal the fact that the 1. A still-respectable account can be found in Gray, The Defense of Chalcedon, pp. 17– 38.

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resistance that had been fierce at the council itself continued to be fierce in attacks on its legitimacy aerwards, especially in Egypt. His successor, Leo, shared in the uncertainty felt by the eastern church about Chalcedon, and about how to deal with the hostility of places like Egypt. He accordingly circulated a letter asking the bishops’ views on the legitimacy of Chalcedon’s ‘decrees’ and of the anti-Chalcedonian patriarch of Egypt’s consecration.2 Not surprisingly, given how many of its opponents had recently been deposed, almost all of the bishops declared Chalcedon legitimate, but not the anti-Chalcedonian patriarch’s consecration. Leo was succeeded by Zeno, against whom the usurper Basiliscus temporarily prevailed, obviously relying on anti-Chalcedonian support: Basiliscus turned the clock back to 449 and Ephesus II, declaring Chalcedon and the Tome illegitimate, and deposing Chalcedonian bishops who refused to subscribe to Ephesus II. It is indicative of the chaotic situation any emperor faced that he very quickly had to reverse himself. e church in the east plainly continued to be divided. Zeno was the next to attempt a solution. His Henoticon tried the middle path: Chalcedon was neither withdrawn nor enforced, avoiding any decision as to its legitimacy or the legitimacy of its two-natures-aer-the-Incarnation language. Instead there was to be agreement on essentially the faith of Ephesus II – the Nicene Creed, completed by Constantinople I and Ephesus I (this last now taken to include Cyril’s twelve anathemas). Nestorius and Eutyches were alike condemned. e troublesome Tome was simply ignored, so that in its case as well no decision as to legitimacy had to be reached.3 Rome of course would never agree to the Henoticon’s bypassing of her prized document, but for many years she did not oppose it because she was kept in the dark about its very existence. Alerted at last to the deception in the last years of Zeno’s reign, she excommunicated its proponents; this signalled the opening of the Acacian Schism between east and west. Uneasy peace of a sort continued in the east though, as always with a peace like this, manoeuvering for advantage by both sides, each still seeking a complete victory, was the order of the day. When Anastasius succeeded to the imperial throne, his concentration on the east led him to favour the anti-Chalcedonians, who by this time were arguing that the Henoticon not only suspended, but annulled Chalcedon. John Rufus, Bishop of Maïouma and a staunch anti-Chalcedonian, gives us some idea of how the history we have been dealing with was viewed by anti-Chalcedonians as they looked back from late in Anastasius’ reign. 2. e letter: Codex Encyclius, ACO II, 5, p. 11; The Chronicle of Pseudo-Zachariah Rhetor IV, 5, ed. and tr. Geoffrey Greatex et al. (Liverpool, 2001), pp. 139–40. 3. Evagrius Scholasticus, Ecclesiastical History, SC 542, pp. 420–25.

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His Plerophoria (Assurances) seeks simply to assure its readers of the ‘prevarication’ and ‘perversity’ of Chalcedonian bishops, men in its view who had shown a willingness to betray any position they once stood up for; it seeks, too, to encourage anti-Chalcedonians to stand by ‘the truth’ under persecution until Judgement Day which, they are also assured, cannot be far off: You then, who reproved Nestorius, the champion of two natures, at Ephesus, you who there refuted the one who was striving to affirm two natures, and anathematized those who dared, or would dare, to think and teach in this way, how could you not be culpable, how could you not be prevaricators, you who restored at Chalcedon the very things that you had destroyed previously, and that for fear of men and to satisfy and to flatter an impious emperor …? In fact, as I have said, you condemned the impious dogma [of ‘two natures’] at the Council of Ephesus, and then at Constantinople reestablished it with Flavian, the partisan of two natures; then, shortly aerwards, at the Second Council of Ephesus – presided over by a holy man, the orthodox Dioscorus, assisted by Juvenal and by the host of orthodox bishops – you destroyed impiety and then, aer a certain time, you restored it publically at the Council of Chalcedon, and … you received eodoret and Ibas without a judgement.4

For John there was nothing to be debated, nor conversation to be had, between the remnant who had loyally stood by Ephesus II and orthodoxy, and the swarm of traitorous bishops who had changed sides with every wind that blew. When first Justin, then his nephew Justinian, took the imperial throne (in 518 and 527 respectively) they ushered in a quite different age: with an eye newly fixed on Rome, and in Justinian’s case with an eye also on the ‘lost’ provinces in the west he felt duty-bound to reconquer some day, they cancelled the Henoticon and made a pro-Chalcedonian, pro-Tome official stance a cornerstone of their ecclesiastical policy. ey established certainty on one score at least: the reversion of the church to the position of Ephesus II dreamed of by anti-Chalcedonians was a fading possibility at best. At the same time, the ongoing reality of whole areas of the church that were solidly anti-Chalcedonian could not be ignored. At the court level double diplomacy allowed Justinian to maintain an unfailingly Chalcedonian official stance, while his wife, eodora, kept the lines of communication open with anti-Chalcedonians. e imperial goal remained unity under Chalcedon, but in pursuit of that goal opportunities to negotiate with anti-Chalcedonians were a necessity. In one striking example, in 532 (or 533) Justinian brokered conversations between bishops representing the two factions that included his separate interventions with 4. John Rufus, Plerophories LVII, PO 8, pp. 114–15.

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both. ese conversations will be of special interest to us shortly. e point here is that, in this climate, Chalcedonians began to feel a duty to convince anti-Chalcedonians to ‘return’, as they saw it, to the official-church fold, by convincing them that their differences were either illusory or soluble, and that the anti-Chalcedonians’ separation had therefore been mistaken. is was the neo-Chalcedonian agenda. Among anti-Chalcedonians, persecuted and oen living in exile, the chief response was self-justification: we were not the ones who made the mistake; it was Chalcedon which chose to add to the creed language that was thinly-veiled Nestorianism, forcing us to separate from Chalcedonians. e opening up of dialogue between anti-Chalcedonians and Chalcedonians, however hostile and unpromising, inaugurated major retrospectives on the history with which we have been concerned. What mistake or mistakes had been made, and by whom? Given the central importance of Cyril to the controversy from the beginning, that question might better be phrased, who understood and was loyal to the Cyril of history, and who betrayed him? Historical evidence was required if one side or the other was to be able to justify the claim that it merited the mantle of Cyril. Both sides realized at once that the answers to questions were to be sought first and foremost in the Union of 433 and its immediate aermath. at meant focusing on the Union itself, the Laetentur coeli letter containing it, and the new-formulae letters that followed soon aer. It meant going to the sources: letters, of course, but also acts of councils and synods brought out of patriarchal archives. But the sources could not settle the issues. Instead, they themselves were endlessly dissected and argued over. e ongoing controversy, rather than being settled, simply took on new layers of argumentation. One of the chief controversialists of the sixth century was Severus, the anti-Chalcedonian patriarch of Antioch from 512 to 518, the closing years of the sympathetic emperor Anastasius’ reign. He is considered to be the greatest of the anti-Chalcedonian theologians and apologists.5 Only fragments remain of his writings. Exiled aer the accession of Justin in 518, he continued to lead the anti-Chalcedonian resistance, engaging in literary debates with pro-Chalcedonians such as Nephalius of Alexandria, and John the Grammarian, their writings surviving in fragmentary form in Severus’ citations. In the course of his engagement with pro-Chalcedonians he, like other controversialists of the time, chiefly turned his attention to the Union of 433, and what Cyril’s subscription to it and the new-formulae letters occasioned by it implied. 5. Aloys Grillmeier, Christ in Christian Tradition II, 2 (Louisville, 1989) devotes the whole of Part One, almost 200 pages, to Severus, a tribute to his importance.

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e earliest texts come from ca. 507, representing part of Severus’ response to Nephalius of Alexandria’s Apology for Chalcedon. Nephalius centred his argument on the Union and its interpretation in the newformulae letters, arguing that the formula proposed by Cyril in those letters as his two-natures teaching, ‘out of two natures’, and Chalcedon’s ‘in two natures’ were just different ways of saying the same thing. erefore the anti-Chalcedonians’ grounds for separation from the Chalcedonian church were, he argued, illusory. Severus, in response, was able to point out from the acts that Chalcedon itself had opposed ‘out of two natures’ to ‘in two natures’ during the cross-examination of Dioscorus. How could Nephalius now claim that, for Chalcedonians, they were identical?6 e same crux was addressed by the unnamed Chalcedonian who collected the Cyrillian Florilegium to which Severus responded in his Philalethes: e florilegist concluded from the Union’s ‘distinguishing of the evangelical and apostolic statements’ that ‘these should be divided in this way between the two natures, as one might allot some of them to the divine nature alone, others of them only to the human nature.’7 When Severus responds to this challenge, he first points to the preceding section of the Union, the section we have described as replete with Cyrillian slogans. As he sees it, ‘when the holy Cyril came upon these statements [in the last sentence of the Union] as it were in a net, he readily made peace with them, and wisely took charge of the net for himself.’ Cyril could be said to have taken the lead, and the trapped to have become the trapper, first because the Antiochenes’ subscription committed them to that assemblage of orthodox Cyrillian slogans, and second because their submission had implications Cyril could spell out and demand compliance with: ‘For he also demanded of them that they consent to the degradation of Nestorius, and that they declare anathema the vanity of the unclean terminology [unmistakably ‘in two natures aer the incarnation’].’8 at was one way of interpreting and justifying Cyril’s subscription to the last sentence of the Union, but not the only one. Cyril’s reconciliation with Antiochenes in the Union had always been more than a bit of an embarrassment both to himself and to his sympathizers for one obvious reason not so far addressed, namely, that the Union’s last sentence, while it did not contain ‘in two natures’, also did not contain either ‘out of two natures’ or ‘one incarnate nature’. Why, then, had Cyril subscribed to it? His explanation was that he had made an accommodation or condescension to the Antiochenes, because they 6. Severus, To Nephalius, Or. II, CSCO 64, pp. 10–11, tr. Pauline Allen and Charles T.R. Hayward, Severus of Antioch (London–New York, 2004), pp. 59–60. 7. Severus, Philalethes, flor. 8, CSCO 68, p. 201, tr. Hayward, p. 73. 8. Severus, Philalethes, flor. 8, CSCO 68, p. 200, tr. Hayward, p. 72.

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were ‘somewhat in the dark about the terminology’, but how was that to be understood, and which terminology did he have in mind? John the Grammarian maintained that Cyril was referring to the Antiochenes’ ‘ignorance of the fact that they should affirm one nature of the Word incarnate’. He denied that he was referring to ‘two natures’; naturally, as a Chalcedonian, he maintained that Cyril had always acknowledged two natures.9 Furthermore, Cyril’s joy at the signing of the Union, signified by his opening quotation from Psalm 95, ‘Let the heavens rejoice’, showed, according to John, that ‘the wise Cyril recognized [the Antiochenes’] formulae as his own.’10 ere had been on Cyril’s part no ‘condescension’ to the Antiochenes on that score – he had not lowered himself. e faith of Chalcedon could be brought out of the darkness of ignorance about the other formula, though, and made to capture fully what Cyril meant, if one accepted that, properly speaking, the council’s Definition should be amended to contain both formulae. Severus dismissed this construction of the situation. Cyril had condescended to the Antiochenes, and for a very good strategic reason. What he found the Antiochenes to be in the dark about was precisely the ‘two natures’ formula, a dangerous error. He had indeed argued against the author of the Cyrillian Florilegium that the sting had largely been taken out of the Antiochenes’ error by their subscription to so much Cyrillian language in the first part of the Union, but now he wanted to go further: Now when they had thus acknowledged these things, he accepted from then on as being without danger these phrases which feature in bungling fashion in the document of reconciliation, as if they were words of children who prattle, so that by way of prattling along with them he might elevate them to purer modes of expression.11

Cyril, he was saying, had intentionally tolerated some pretty horrifying language, as he made clear with a different metaphor: ‘You have uttered gross statements,’ he charged, ‘which are typical of people who are sick. Do not hide from concern for [your] healing.’12 Doctrinal sickness, and doctrinal healing were at the heart of it, for Severus: Cyril had voluntarily humiliated himself in accepting the Union despite its lack of ‘one incarnate nature of the Word of God’; he accepted inadequate language in order to become an effective ‘huckster’ who could talk Chalcedonians 9. Severus, Against the Impious Grammarian, Or. III, 12, CSCO 45, p. 219, tr. Hayward, p. 77. 10. Severus, Against the Impious Grammarian, Or. III, 12, CSCO 45, p. 221, tr. Hayward, p. 78. 11. Severus, Philalethes, flor. 8, CSCO 68, p. 199, tr. Hayward, p. 72. 12. Severus, Philalethes, flor. 8, CSCO 68, p. 201, tr. Hayward, p. 73.

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into using more correct language. To use a more dignified metaphor, Cyril became a ‘wise physician’ in order to promote healing.13 In short, in Severus’ view Cyril really had in 433 condescended to the Antiochenes by temporarily accepting ‘two natures’, but only in order eventually to win them over to complete orthodoxy. ere was better language to be had that did not talk about two natures. Finally, we may turn to several sharp exchanges involving the history that took place during the Conversations of 532. We have two reports, one sizeable fragment of a report on the anti-Chalcedonian side, probably written by John Rufus, and another, much longer Chalcedonian report, written by Innocentius of Maronia and addressed to the priest omas. Many issues surfaced during the two days out of the projected three before the talks broke down. Inevitably, Cyril’s subscription to the Union was central. For the Chalcedonian delegation, Cyril had, by subscribing, united with the Antiochenes. Moreover, since John of Antioch was at one with eodoret and Ibas, and Cyril was at one with John, Cyril was therefore at one with eodoret and Ibas. Naturally, the anti-Chalcedonian delegation resisted. For them, the Union between Cyril and John was by no means complete. Like Severus, they held that Cyril accepted John only by condescension, and for tactical reasons. ey employed a familiar metaphor to characterize what they maintained happened in 433: Because the bishops of the entire eastern diocese did not want to sign the deposition of Nestorius … the blessed Cyril, like a wise doctor in an emergency, accepted all the bishops of the diocese of the Orient – even if it was without going into details (lit. exactly) – once they had acknowledged that Nestorius had been deposed … by them from the priesthood, and they themselves had given an orthodox profession of faith …14

is account differs from that concerning Severus and John the Grammarian in that it specifies how Cyril used his acceptance of the Union to push them closer to full orthodoxy: they essentially paid for his agreement to a statement that did not include ‘going into details’, that is, specifying ‘one incarnate nature’ and ‘out of two natures’, which would have made it impossible for them to sign, by agreeing to the opening statements in the Union, and to the deposition of Nestorius. Most telling of all was an exchange over the Union and the letters that interpreted it. Here is how John Rufus recorded what was said: When the Chalcedonians introduced the Antiochenes’ letter to Cyril and his response in the form of Laetentur coeli, the anti-Chalcedonians did not object: ‘We acknowledge that we 13. Severus, Against the Impious Grammarian, Or. III.12, CSCO 45, p. 222, tr. Hayward, pp. 78–79. 14. John of Beit-Aphtona, Report, tr. Brock, pp. 15–17.

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accept both,’ they said, ‘in accordance with the understanding of the wise teacher’, that is, in accordance with Cyril’s explanation of what he meant in the new-formulae letters.15 ey then attempted to introduce such of those letters as they happened to be in possession of, namely Cyril’s letters to Eulogius and to Acacius of Melitene. To accept them as the authoritative guides to understanding Cyril, they knew, would be to accept ‘one incarnate nature’ and ‘out of two natures [aer the Incarnation]’, that is, to repudiate Chalcedon. e Chalcedonian bishops baulked: ‘We do not accept, for purposes of ecclesiastical law, those things which were not confirmed by the synod’, they said. e phrase ‘confirmed by the synod’ tells us that they are referring to the ‘synodical’ letters, which are their authoritative guides to what Cyril meant. e anti-Chalcedonians ‘held up the discussion and demanded that this be put in writing, and that the opposing [bishops] should say openly that they do not [accept these newformulae letters] …’16 Written proof that Chalcedonians outright rejected letters of the authoritative Cyril would obviously be damning evidence that their claim to be the true Cyrillians was false. It is no wonder that nothing came of this exchange, and that the conversations moved on to other topics. What is clear from this report is that the argument about the place and authority of the new-formulae letters was at this point unresolved and looking unresolvable. It is worth a moment to look at Innocentius’ somewhat different account of this same episode. According to him the anti-Chalcedonians complained above all about ‘the novelty of two natures’: though blessed Cyril and his predecessors proclaimed ‘one incarnate nature of the Word of God aer the union out of two natures’, Chalcedonians presumed to introduce ‘in two natures.’17 Hypatius offered an extended justification, not mentioned in John Rufus’ account, for not accepting the new-formulae letters: they might be forged. How so? Well, in the first place, Cyril used ‘one incarnate nature’ neither in his letters to Nestorius, nor at Ephesus I, nor in defending the twelve anathemas. He produced no testimony from the fathers using it at Ephesus I. Moreover, it originated, not in any known work by a genuine father, but in an Apollinarian forgery. Once forgery was established, the argument could be turned around. e anti-Chalcedonians claimed that Cyril ‘made use of those texts in the books published against Diodore and eodore’, but Hypatius could respond, ‘You make those 15. John of Beit-Aphtona, Report, tr. Brock, pp. 24–25. 16. John of Beit-Aphtona, Report, tr. Brock, pp. 26–27. 17. Innocentius of Maronia, Letter to Thomas the Priest, ACO IV, 2, p. 171. Innocentius here provides the sole example I am aware of that puts the entire lot of anti-Chalcedonian formulae together in a single phrase.

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books against Diodore and eodore doubtful, even forged, in the worst way …’18 e issue was letters, which of them were the authoritative guides to understanding the Union, and now as well, which of them were authentic. e anti-Chalcedonians did not give up. ‘We … bring forward the letters of blessed Cyril in which he disapproves of confessing two subsisting natures aer the union.’19 Hypatius replies, ‘We accept those things which agree with his synodical letters.’ One can determine what is authentic, what false, by a simple rule: ‘the expressions that are contrary to his synodical letters have been falsified by heretics.’20 Passages that agree with what Cyril produced at Ephesus I are to be received. ose which do not ‘either are not his, or are undoubtedly forged …’ Chalcedonians, he says, take a cautious approach to doubtful letters: ‘We do not condemn such a father, but neither do we, for the purpose of a preliminary examination of the correct faith, praise very much those diverse things which these yapping epistles bring forth in his persona.’21 e key evidence for their version of what Cyril meant by the Union having been so ignominiously dismissed as ‘yapping epistles’, it is no surprise that the anti-Chalcedonian delegation broke off the Conversations aer two days, much to Justinian’s displeasure. Whichever account one reads, the conclusion is the same: the factions continued to agree that what Cyril stood for represented the very orthodoxy they espoused. To clothe oneself with the mantle of the historical Cyril revealed on the evidence of letters would theoretically be to establish one’s orthodox credentials beyond dispute – except that it was a matter of dispute which were his authentic his letters and what, in particular, the Union, signified. It did not occur to them, as it would to a modern, that to speak of ‘what Cyril stood for’ as if it were a single, unchanging proposition or set of propositions was to ignore history, rather than be true to it. To ignore history was to ignore the fact that persons change over time. Cyril, on a modern account, simply changed over time and under various pressures. Happy enough to speak of two natures, even of two natures persisting into the Incarnation, for much of his life, he was forced by the Nestorian attack to use a new set of terms. Being true to Cyril in 430 was not the same thing as being true to him in, say, 434, aer the new-formulae letters came into circulation. Two parties in this way could make plausible, but incompatible, claims to wear the mantle of Cyril, and to prove them from history. So it continues. 18. 19. 20. 21.

Innocentius, Letter to Thomas, ACO IV, 2, p. 172. Innocentius, Letter to Thomas, ACO IV, 2, p. 175. Innocentius, Letter to Thomas, ACO IV, 2, p. 175. Innocentius, Letter to Thomas, ACO IV, 2, p. 180.

BIBLIOGRAPHY P S Collections and Translations Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum, ed. Eduard Schwartz (Berlin, 1927–). Acts of the Council of Chalcedon, tr. Richard Price and Michael Gaddis (Translated Texts for Historians 45; Liverpool, 2005). Akten der ephesinischen Synode von Jahre 449, ed. and tr. Johannes P.G. Flemming (Abhandlungen der königlichen Gesellscha der Wissenschaen zu Göttingen. Philologisch-historische Klasse. NF 15; Berlin, 1917). Cyril of Alexandria, Letters, ed. and tr. Lionel R. Wickham, Cyril of Alexandria, Select Letters (Oxford, 1983). —, Letters 1–50, tr. John I. McEnerney (FC 75; Washington, 1987). —, Letters 51–110, tr. John I. McEnerney (FC 76; Washington, 1987). —, selected texts, tr. Norman Russell, Cyril of Alexandria (New York, 2000). The Second Synod of Ephesus, tr. Samuel G.F. Perry (Dartford, 1881). General Acacius of Melitene, Letter to Cyril, ACO I, IV, pp. 118–19. Alypius, Letter to Cyril of Alexandria, ACO I, I, 3, pp. 74–75. Andrew of Samosata, Report, ACO I, IV, pp. 86–87. Athanasius, Against the Arians III, PG 26, coll. 12–468. Basil of Caesarea, Letters 61, 66, 67, 69, 80, 82, ed. and tr. Yves Courtonne, Saint Basile, Lettres, T. I (Paris, 1957). Basil the Deacon and other Monks, Petition, ACO I, I, 5, pp. 7–10. Bishops in Constantinople, Memorandum, ACO I, I, 2, pp. 65–66. Candidianus, Instructions to the Council (23 June), ACO I, IV, p. 33. —, Protest after the Deposition of Nestorius, ACO I, IV, p. 33. —, Protest to the Council, ACO I, IV, pp. 31–32. Celestine, Letter to Nestorius, ACO I, 2, pp. 7–12. —, Letter to Cyril, ACO I, I, 1, pp. 75–77. —, Letter to Cyril, ACO I, 2, pp. 26–27. Clergy of Constantinople, Petition to Theodosius II, ACO I, I, 3, pp. 49–50. Codex Encyclius, ACO II, 5, pp. 9–98. Council of Ephesus, Injunction to the Envoys of the Council, ACO I, I, 3, pp. 33–36. —, Letter to Celestine, ACO I, I, 3, pp. 5–9. —, Letter to the Bishops in Constantinople, ACO I, I, 3, pp. 43–44. —, Reply to the Sacra, ACO I, I, 3, pp. 32–33. —, Reply to Theodosius II (1 July), ACO I, I, 3, pp. 10–13. Cyril of Alexandria, Apology to the Emperor Theodosius, ACO I, 1, 3, pp. 75–90. —, Catalogue of Things Dispatched from Here to the Following, ACO I, IV, pp. 224–25. —, Commentary on the Gospel of John, ed. Philip E. Pusey (Oxford, 1872). —, Commonitorium to Posidonius the Deacon, ACO I, I, 7, pp. 171–72.

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INDEX OF PERSONS Abramius, priest 171 Acacius of Beroea 74 Acacius of Melitene 53, 124, 126–28, 130, 133, 140, 143–44, 176, 290 Aetius, archdeacon and notary 215– 16, 223, 232–34 Alexander of Alexandria 25 Alypius, priest 26, 66–67 Anastasius, Emperor 284, 286 Anastasius, priest 44 Anatolius of Constantinople 185– 86, 199, 203, 215, 217, 219, 233, 238, 247 Andrew, deacon 166–67 Andrew of Samosata 142–43 Anianas of Capitolias 229 Antony, monk 27 Apollinarius of Laodicea 24, 35–36, 44, 78, 101, 129 Arius 26, 66, 101 Arsenius 25 Asterius, notary 171 Athanasius, deacon 167 Athanasius of Alexandria 14, 21–29, 32, 34–35, 38–40, 43, 47, 51–52, 54–55, 64–67, 69, 153–54, 158, 169– 70, 176, 223–24, 257 Athanasius, priest 224 Atticus of Nicopolis 216–17 Barsaumas, monk 162, 198, 231–32 Basil of Caesarea 23 Basil of Seleucia 153, 155, 177–78, 197–98, 223 Basiliscus, usurper 284 Caelestius, Pelagian 107 Candidianus of Antioch 83, 85–88, 91–92, 95–98, 100–101, 104, 107, 260 Capreolus of Carthage 94 Carosus, monk 186, 231, 233–34 Cassian, John, monk 26, 76

Celestine of Rome 1, 10–11, 33, 60– 62, 64, 68, 72, 76–77, 83–85, 88, 90– 91, 93, 105, 187, 232, 238, 240, 260– 61, 268 Charisius, priest 106 Chrysostom, John, of Constantinople 12, 29–30 Constantine of Bostra 223 Cosmas the Eunuch 27 Dalmatius, priest 61, 97 Diodore of Tarsus 6, 25, 34, 44, 72, 122, 125, 143–45, 265, 290–91 Dioscorus of Alexandria 1, 2, 6, 10– 13, 15–17, 144, 146, 159, 160, 162, 173–75, 177–82, 185, 187–90, 193– 204, 206–209, 213, 216–18, 221–27, 229–34, 237–38, 253, 265, 267–68, 270–71, 274, 277, 279, 287 Domnus of Antioch 144, 180, 251 Dorotheus of Marcianopolis 44, 61, 65, 186, 231, 233–34 Eleusinius, deacon 168 Eulogius, priest 53, 61, 128, 137, 290 Eunomius 101 Eusebius of Ancyra 223 Eusebius of Dorylaeum 93, 145–51, 154–55, 161–63, 165–66, 168, 172, 174–78, 180, 182, 186, 188–96, 198, 201–203, 206, 209, 215, 221–25, 248, 267–68, 270 Eustathius of Berytus 169, 175–77, 183, 188, 203–205, 223, 241, 247, 249, 268, 270 Eutyches, monk and priest 1, 2, 6, 10–17, 93, 118, 122, 142–43, 145–49, 151, 153–79, 181–85, 187–88, 191– 92, 194–97, 199–201, 203–206, 209– 10, 213–14, 221, 224–28, 230, 233, 236, 241–42, 247–48, 251, 253, 266– 71, 274, 277, 279, 283–84

300

  

Faustus, monk 233 Flavian of Constantinople 6, 10, 12, 16, 118–19, 145–47, 149–52, 154–56, 158–66, 168–74, 176–86, 188–89, 191–92, 194–96, 198–203, 205–210, 213, 215, 221, 224–27, 236–37, 241, 247–48, 253, 262, 265–71, 277, 281 Florentius, patrician 148, 153–56, 166–67, 169, 171, 178 Gregory of Nazianzus

24–25, 27

Helpidius, Count 163, 172–75, 201 Hilary of Poitiers 23, 175, 179 Hypatius 290–91 Ibas of Edessa 7, 128–30, 142–43, 157, 175, 180, 245, 247–53, 263, 267, 273–74, 281, 289 Innocentius of Maronia 63, 289–91 Irenaeus, Count 102–104, 108, 110, 144 Irenaeus of Tyre 180 Ischyrion, deacon 223–24 Isidore of Pelusium 30 Jerome 23, 25 John, Count 107–108, 111 John of Antioch 1, 6, 10, 14–15, 45, 52–53, 60, 63, 65, 67, 73–76, 81, 85–87, 89–91, 97–110, 112, 115, 117– 27, 130–38, 141–45, 147–49, 152, 156, 177, 195, 202, 218, 248, 255, 259–64, 266, 272, 278, 281, 285, 288–89 John of Beit Aphtona 63, 169, 290 John of Germanicia 235–36 John, priest and advocate 166–67 John, priest and protonotary 172, 177 John Rufus 284, 289–90 John the Grammarian 286, 288–89 Justin, Emperor 285–86 Justinian, Emperor 285, 291 Juvenal of Jerusalem 60, 76–77, 83, 91–92, 207–209, 223 Komarius, bishop

61

Leo of Rome 6, 11–12, 160, 175, 179, 181–88, 190, 192, 195, 198, 200, 202– 203, 209, 210–11, 213–18, 225–30,

232, 235–38, 240–41, 245–46, 253, 268–74, 281, 283–84 Leo, Emperor 284 Macedonius, tribune, notary, and referendary 147, 161, 166, 171 Magnus, silentiary 147, 171 Marcian, Emperor 2, 159, 183–89, 191, 200–201, 209, 211, 213, 219, 222– 23, 226–27, 231, 233–35, 239, 248, 253–55, 269–71, 273–75, 279–81, 283 Maximian of Constantinople 120 Maximus of Antioch 186, 225, 251 Meliphthongus of Juliopolis 161 Memnon of Ephesus 101, 103–109, 112 Moschos, John, monk 27 Nephalius of Alexandria 286–87 Nestorius 1, 2, 5–6, 9–12, 14, 18–19, 21, 25, 28–29, 31, 33–37, 39, 41, 43– 57, 59–65, 67–78, 81–85, 88–107, 115, 117–20, 122, 124–29, 131, 133– 38, 143–45, 147, 165, 173, 177, 181– 82, 184–85, 187, 202–203, 228, 233, 245–46, 248–49, 251, 255, 257–65, 267, 273–74, 277–78, 281, 284, 287, 289–90 Paschasinus of Lilybaeum 186, 225 Paul of Emesa 121 Paul of Samosata 129 Peter, priest and primicerius 88, 91 Posidonius, deacon 62 Potamon, bishop 61 Proclus of Constantinople 143 Pulcheria, Empress 184–86 Rabbula of Edessa

129, 142–43, 247

Seleucus of Amaseia 170, 177–78 Severus of Antioch 216, 286–89 Sisoès, monk 27 Socrates, historian 25, 29, 44 Sophronius 223 Sozon of Philippi 229 Stephen of Ephesus 199 Succensus of Diocaesarea 128, 140– 42, 144, 176

   alassius of Caesarea 173, 223 eodora, Empress 285 eodore, civil servant 224 eodore of Mopsuestia 5, 6, 13, 25, 34, 43–45, 73–74, 125, 129, 143–45, 223–24, 257, 265, 291 eodoret of Cyrus 2, 4–5, 7, 12, 20, 30, 54, 57–58, 60, 97, 109, 127, 144, 172, 180, 189–91, 202–203, 216, 229, 245–48, 251–53, 262, 270, 273–74, 281, 289 eodosius II, emperor 2, 6, 19, 63, 66, 77, 81–89, 91–92, 95–98, 100–103, 105–12, 115–16, 128, 142–44, 147,

301

158–66, 171–72, 175, 180–81, 183– 84, 186–87, 191, 201, 222, 247–48, 253, 260–63, 265, 267, 269, 277, 279 Theophilus of Alexandria 12, 21, 29–31, 47, 224, 257, 280 omas, priest 289 Timothy, priest 61 Valerian of Iconium 128, 176 Veronicianus, secretary 238 Xystus of Rome

238

Zeno, Emperor 284

INDEX OF SUBJECTS Acts, conciliar 6, 16–18, 88, 160, 166–67, 172–73, 175–79, 194–95, 198, 202, 210, 246, 268, 270, 273, 286–87 Syriac 248, 250 Alexandria school 1, 45 Anthropotokos 46 Anti-Chalcedonians 15, 128, 155, 172, 254, 283–87, 289–91 Antioch 1, 5, 25, 43, 44, 48, 89, 96, 115, 121, 144, 185, 195, 206, 231, 251, 257, 263 Antiochenes apology 134, 138, 149, 152 cadre 2, 6, 21, 43–44, 73–74, 78, 86, 100, 203, 236, 257–58, 280 critiques of Cyril’s Council 99, 101, 106 fathers 44, 265 heroic narrative 25, 72, 257 letters 55–58 precision 39, 56–57, 60 satire 64, 144 Apollinarianism 22, 24, 25, 35, 36, 44, 45, 48, 52, 75, 76, 78, 82, 84, 89, 99–102, 105, 111, 115, 122, 123, 129– 31, 136, 170, 247, 259, 262, 263, 265, 290 Argumentum patristicum 51 Arianism narratives of the struggle against 23–27, 34–36, 72, 257 Athanasius church father 22–26, 67 heroic narrative 22–24, 28 orthodoxy 43–44, 55 Body-soul union 78, 121, 141

25, 34–36, 70–71,

Chalcedon adverbs 242 agenda see Marcian

Council 9, 11, 16–17, 172, 183–211, 227, 257, 269, 275, 283 definition 18, 235–39, 241–43, 252, 254, 272–74, 278, 280, 283, 288 modus operandi 162 statement of faith 2–4, 9, 11–12, 15, 19, 188, 191–94, 209, 213, 227–28, 245, 253–54, 260, 271–72 Chalcedonians 172, 197, 254, 282– 83, 286–91 Christological Controversy see Nestorian Controversy Christotokos 10, 46, 72 Mantle of Cyril strategy 4, 20, 22, 60, 116–17, 145, 156, 175, 180–81, 201– 202, 204, 209, 215, 229, 238, 245, 248, 253, 258, 262, 266–67, 269–71, 273–75, 278, 281–82, 286, 291 Conciliabulum 59, 63, 65 Constantinople archbishop 47–48, 59, 63 monks 55–56, 62–63, 231–32 relations with Cyril 29–31 Constantinople, First Council (381) creed 210, 214, 228, 239–41, 246, 271, 284 Conversations of 532 63, 128, 169, 285, 289 Cyril of Alexandria authority 19, 21–22, 52–56, 60, 67, 148–49, 157, 179, 202, 206, 210, 229, 257, 271 condescension to Antiochenes 287– 89 dyophysitism 1, 6, 12, 14, 16, 19, 38–41, 44, 49, 51–52, 69–70, 122– 23, 131–42, 145, 149–56, 176–80, 253, 263–64, 266–67, 277–78, 281, 287–91 insouciant Language 21–22, 34– 41, 49, 69, 131–32, 138, 150, 216, 257, 266, 278, 281 martyrdom 26, 66–67

304

  

new Athanasius 55, 67 new-formulae letters 142, 149–52, 169, 176–77, 180, 193, 204, 206, 213, 215, 236, 243, 266, 268, 286, 290–91 persecution of Jews and Novatians 30 synodical letters 157, 168, 176, 202–206, 208–10, 215, 229, 235– 36, 240–42, 247–48, 255, 267–68, 271, 273, 281, 290–91 eophilus 12, 21, 29–31, 257, 280 tradition of the Fathers 22–29, 36, 39–40, 49–55, 64–67, 122, 140, 257 twelve chapters/anathemas 57, 129– 30, 142, 144, 259, 284, 290 Union of 433 6, 9–10, 12–16, 19, 53, 86, 99, 115–28, 130–39, 141– 45, 149, 151–52, 154, 195, 218, 248, 250, 263–64, 275, 280–82, 286–89, 291 Dioscorus Direction of Ephesus II 6, 12, 172– 80, 193, 270 trial 189–90, 193–97, 221–26, 270–71 violence 160, 197–201, 270 Double consubstantiality 154–55, 167 Eastern/Oriental bishops 43, 73, 187– 88, 196, 204, 225–26, 228, 230, 235, 237, 239, 242, 249, 269–72 resistance at Chalcedon 213–19 Ecumenical Patriarch 81 Edessa 129, 247, 250 Egyptian bishops 196, 230–31, 272 Ephesus I (431) calls for a council 81-2 canon 7 106, 111, 164–65, 173, 179, 213, 228 Imperial vision 82–84 rival councils 86–89 Nestorius 88–91, 96–97 John’s Council 96, 99–101 Cyril’s Council 91–94, 97 Ephesus II (449) acts 172, 194–95, 202, 270 ecumenical status 160 Eutyches’ appeal 163–64, 172–73

imperial agenda 161–62, 172–73 Leo’s Tome 175, 179, 181–82, 184– 88, 195, 197, 271–73 preliminary hearing 147, 160 violence see Dioscorus Eranistes 32, 64, 144, 250 Eucharist 33, 34, 36, 37, 43, 111, 140 Eustathius interventions 177, 203–205 Eutyches faith 172, 213 misrepresentation 171, 196 trial 93, 118, 122, 142–43, 146–48, 157–59, 171, 236 Eutychianism 6, 10, 146, 182, 185, 195–97, 201, 240, 269, 273 Flavian Cyrillianism 160 death 180 dissimulation 182 rehabilitation 192, 194, 202, 215, 227, 236 statement at Chalcedon 206–209 Florilegia 27–28, 216 Forgeries 35, 290 Hagiography 25–26 Henoticon 284–85 Home Synod of 448 6, 10, 16, 62, 145–67, 170–74, 176–80, 182–83, 191–92, 194, 196, 201–210, 215, 221– 22, 226, 233, 236, 241–42, 247–48, 253–54, 266–68, 270–71, 274, 277, 279, 281, 283 acts 6, 166, 173, 175–78, 194, 202, 268, 270, 273 hearings 147, 153 Hypostasis 2, 13, 14, 70–71, 78, 132, 138, 150, 152, 257 one hypostasis 3, 11, 16, 131, 149, 159, 207, 242–43 John of Antioch see Ephesus I Juvenal change of sides Latrocinium 201

207–209

6, 12, 15–16, 198, 200–

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305

Leo (Emperor) legitimacy of Chalcedon 284 Leo (Pope) relations with Cyril 187–88, 195, 213–19 Tome 11, 175, 181–88, 195, 207, 213, 215–19, 225–33, 235–37, 239– 42, 245–46, 253, 268–73, 283–85 Marcian accession 183 agenda for Chalcedon 188–90, 192, 198, 201, 207, 210–11, 214, 229–31, 235, 249–50, 270–72, 275, 281 Monks 26–28, 43, 46–64, 67–68, 82–83, 97–98, 157, 162, 165, 179, 182, 187–88, 198, 230–34, 257–58, 272 Monophysitism 10, 12, 16, 136, 146, 154–55, 185, 266, 269

deposition 65, 75, 83, 90–100, 115, 120, 127, 259–60, 262 strategies 73–76, 84–85, 88–91 Nicaea Antiochene alternative 106 Antiochene interpretation 35, 43–44, 92–93, 101, 109, Council (325) 22–26, 28, 257, 278 Creed 22–24, 43, 52, 54, 59, 92– 93, 101, 105–106, 109, 122, 134, 164, 177, 214–15, 228–29, 233, 239–41, 246, 272 Non-/anti-Chalcedonians 7, 15, 128, 155, 172, 233, 254, 283–91 Novelties 50, 64, 93–94, 105–106, 152, 166, 173, 177, 239, 268, 290

Nature/s aer the union/incarnation 40–41, 138–42, 145, 151, 153–55, 157– 58, 165, 168–70, 177–78, 198, 202, 205, 207–10, 226–27, 241–42, 250, 264–73, 290–91 before the union/incarnation 6, 15, 41, 138–42, 145, 150–51, 153–56, 158, 176–79, 183, 188, 221, 226, 233, 241–42, 264, 266, 273, 277 in two natures 11, 15–17, 122–23, 139, 150, 154, 236–37, 242–43, 273, 287, 290 one nature 1, 14, 16, 19, 35, 38, 40, 44, 49, 52, 78, 123, 129, 130, 138– 39, 141–42, 154–55, 158, 169, 178, 181, 204–205, 226, 233, 240–42, 251, 263–65, 280, 288 out of two natures 15–17, 139–41, 150–51, 153–54, 236–37, 241, 264, 266, 273, 287, 289–90 Nestorianism 10, 15, 17, 130–33, 135, 173, 185, 197, 216, 239–40, 252, 267, 269, 273–74, 282, 286 Nestorians 99, 123–25, 128, 130–45, 156–59, 238, 240–41, 245–52, 263– 65, 279–82 Nestorius christology 10, 12, 33–34, 36–37

Passibility/impassibility of the Word 32, 35–36, 136 Protective Colouration 116, 120, 156, 182, 202–203, 262–63, 266–67, 270, 273–74, 277–78 Pseudo-Athanasius 35, 40, 140

Operations 14, 34, 36, 216, 237 Origenism 30, 45, 224

Rome agendas 184–86, 189–91, 228–29, 239, 268–69, 271–73, 283–84 campaign for subscriptions to Tome 175, 181, 186–87, 195, 226, 253, 268 legates 105, 175, 181, 187, 199, 228– 29, 233, 238, 241, 268, 272 Synod 68, 72, 76 Scripture 34, 51–52, 64, 72, 122, 140 Strict Chalcedonianism 13 Symmetrically-opposed heresies 185, 197, 240 Synod of the Oak 29 eodoret correspondence 57–58, 60, 109 reception by Chalcedon 189–91, 245–47 rehabilitation 7, 57, 273–74

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eodosius II agenda for Ephesus II 160–63, 172 decisiveness 82–84, 108, 110, 112, 115, 183–84, 263, 265, 267 direction to Ephesus II 163–65 Volte-face 158–60 Theotokos 1–2, 10, 15, 32, 43–52, 54–55, 59, 61–62, 64–65, 67–70, 72–77, 82, 84, 89–90, 115, 117, 121– 22, 182, 240, 242, 246, 257–59, 262, 278, 281 ree Chapters Controversy 25, 143, 252 Tome of Leo Addition to Creed 227–29, 237, 239–41, 271–72

Harmony with Cyril’s letters 187, 229, 240 Twelve Anathemas/Chapters 22, 57, 129–30, 142, 144, 259, 284, 290 Union by Hypostasis 16, 70–71 Union of 433 6, 9–10, 12–14, 19, 90, 99, 115–38, 142, 152, 157, 183, 195, 218, 239, 248, 250, 255, 262, 265, 274–75, 280, 286 Western/Roman christology 181, 268– 69, 274 ‘Young Turks’ 44–49, 59–60, 62, 73, 99, 257, 278

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23. H. A, C. H & I. P (eds.), Christian Historiography between Empires, 4th-8th Centuries. 24. P.T.R. G, Claiming the Mantle of Cyril: Cyril of Alexandria and the Road to Chalcedon.

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