cuted within ten days, giving assurance of his accepting the faith as to "Christ our God," which was held by the churches of Rome and Alexandria, he would be excluded from the communion of those churches, and "provision" would be made by them for the church of Constantinople, i.e. by the appointment of an orthodox bishop. Had Cyril been as violent and imperious as he is often said to have been, he would not have deferred by a single day the carrying out of these instructions. But he took time to assemble, at Alexandria, a "council of all Egypt," and then, probably on Mon. Nov. 3, 430, wrote his third Letter to Nestorius (Ep. p. 57; Mansi, iv. 1067; Routh, Scr. Op. ii. 17), in which he required him to anathematize his errors, and added a long dogmatic exposition of the true sense of the Nicene Creed, with a careful disclaimer of all confusion between Godhead and manhood. To this letter were appended 12 "articles," or "chapters," anathematizing the various points of the Nestorian theory—e.g. that Emmanuel is not really God, and Mary not Theotokos; that, the Word was not personally joined to flesh; that there was a "connexion" of two persons; that Christ is a "God-bearing man"; that He was a separate individual acted on by the Word, and called "God" along with Him; that His Flesh was not the Word's own; that the Word did not suffer death in the flesh. These propositions were not well calculated to reclaim Nestorius; nor were they, indeed, so worded throughout as to approve themselves to all who essentially agreed with Cyril as to the Personal Deity of Christ, and he was afterwards obliged to put forth explanations of their meaning. Cyril wrote two other letters to the clergy, laity, and monks of Constantinople, urging them to contend, or praising them for having already contended, for that faith in Christ's true Godhead of which "Theotokos" was the recognized expression (Mansi, iv. 1094). Four bishops were sent from Alexandria to bear the synodal documents to Constantinople and deliver the anathemas to Nestorius in his palace, after the conclusion of the Eucharistic service, either on Sun. Nov. 30, 430, or Sun. Dec. 7. Nestorius met the denunciations of the Alexandrian synod by enlisting several Eastern bishops in his cause, including John of Antioch, and Theodoret, who accused Cyril of Apollinarianism; by preaching in an orthodox strain to his own people, and by framing 12 anathemas of his own, some of which betrayed confusion of thought, while some tended directly to confirm the charges against his teaching—e.g. he would not allow Emmanuel to be called Very God. Theodoret, whose views on the subject were not as yet clear or consistent, composed a reply to Cyril. Andrew of Samosata, in the name of the "Eastern" bishops properly so called, also entered the lists against the great theologian of Egypt, who answered both his new antagonists in an Apology for the 12 articles (Mansi, v. 19), and a Defence of them against Theodoret's objections, the latter addressed to a bishop named Euoptius (Mansi, v. 81). These treatises threw light on the state of mind to which Cyril's anathemas had seemed so offensive. The Easterns, or Andrew speaking in their name, exhibit some remarkable misconceptions of Cyril's meaning—e.g. they tax him with denying Christ's flesh to be of real human derivation; but they absolutely disclaim the view which would make Jesus merely a preeminent saint, and they speak of worship being due to the One Son. Theodoret uses much language which is prima facie Nestorian; his objections are pervaded by an ignoratio elenchi, and his language is repeatedly illogical and inconsistent; but he and Cyril were essentially nearer in belief than, at the time, they would have admitted (Hooker, v. 53, 4). for Theodoret virtually owns the personal oneness, and explains the phrase "God assumed man" by "He assumed manhood." Both writers speak severely of each other: Theodoret calls Cyril a wolf, and Cyril treats Theodoret as a calumniator. Cyril, in his Reply to the Easterns and in his letter to Euoptius, earnestly disclaims both forms of Apollinarianism—the notion of a mindless manhood in Christ, and the notion of a body formed out of Godhead. The latter, he says, is excluded by John i. 14. In the reply (on art. 4) he admits "the language appropriate to each nature." Cyril points out the confusions of thought which had misled Theodoret as to "God" and "Godhead"; insists that the eternal Son, retaining His divine dignity and perfections, condescended to assume the limitations of manhood; and so (ad Euopt. 4, as in ad Regin. ii. 17, etc.) explains Mark xii. 32, and says, with a touch of devotional tenderness particularly refreshing amid the clash of polemics, "He wept as man, that He might stop thee from weeping. He is said to have been weak as to His manhood, that He might put an end to thy weakness" (ad Euopt. 10). He adhered with characteristic definiteness to the point really involved—the question whether Jesus were a human individual (to be viewed ἰδικῶς, as he repeatedly says), or whether He were the Divine Son Himself appearing in human form and occupying, without prejudice to His inalienable and pre-existent majesty, a human sphere of existence. In the former case, the Son of Mary must be regarded simply as a very highly favoured saint, and Christianity loses its distinctive power and preciousness; in the latter case, He is a Divine Redeemer, and Christianity is a Gospel worthy of the name. "Let us all acknowledge as Saviour the Word of God, Who remained impassible in the nature of the Godhead, but suffered, as Peter said, in the flesh. For, by a true union, that body which tasted death was His very own. Else, how was "Christ from the Jews according to the flesh," and "God over all, and blessed for ever, amen"? and into Whose death have we been baptized, and by confessing Whose resurrection are we justified? . . . The death of a mere man," etc., "or do we, as is indeed the case, proclaim the death of God Who became man and suffered for us in flesh, and confessing His resurrection, put away the burden of sin?" (ad Euopt.) To this same period or the preceding year (429) may be assigned Cyril's five books Against Nestorius. In these he comments on passages in Nestorius's sermons, and by all forms of argument and illustration sets forth the question really at
