The Patriarch Cyril and the Alexandrines held that the two natures of Christ were joined in an indissoluble, “hypostatic” or personal union, yet remained distinct, but that the human nature had no substance independently of the divine; that the Logos suffered without suffering, and that Mary is the mother of God inasmuch as she bare flesh which was united indissolubly with the Logos. Cyril’s doctrine approached that of Apollinaris in so far as it denied the existence of an individual man in Christ, but was sharply opposed to it by its maintenance of the distinction of the two natures.
Nestorius leaned to the doctrine of Theodore of Mopsuestia, which was popular in Syria. He characterised as fables the statements that a God was wrapped in swaddling clothes and was nailed upon the cross, and he protested against the use of the designation “Mother of God” (Theotokos).
It is to be observed that in this controversy both parties agreed in condemning the theory of Apollinaris and in holding that there were two natures in Christ. The main difference between them concerned the formula by which the union of the two natures was to be expressed — Cyril maintaining a “natural union”8 and Nestorius a less intimate “contact.”9 The truth may be that the view of Nestorius was not so very different from that of Cyril as Cyril thought. It seems probable that the doctrine of two Persons, somehow joined together, which is commonly imputed to Nestorius, would have been repudiated by him.10 Cyril wrote to Theodosius, to Eudocia, to Pulcheria and her sisters, censuring the heretical opinion of Nestorius,11 and stirred up the Egyptian monks, who were ever ready for a theological fray. A heated correspondence ensued between the two Patriarchs, and both invoked the support of Celestine, the bishop of Rome. Pope Celestine was no theologian. He was guided by the political expediency of supporting Alexandria against Constantinople, and he evaded the real issue by bringing into the forefront of the controversy a minor point, namely the question whether Mary might properly be called the Mother of God. On this particular point Nestorius was ready to yield, but he would not recant his doctrine at the bidding of a Roman synod.12 Anathemas and counter-anathemas flew between Alexandria and Constantinople, and then the Emperor, by the advice of Nestorius, summoned a Council on the neutral ground of Ephesus for Whitsuntide A.D. 431. The two antagonists arrived in good time, but John the Patriarch of Antioch was three weeks late. Cyril, who was accompanied by fifty bishops, would not wait for him; and the supporters of the Alexandrian party met and decreed the deposition of Nestorius, who refused to attend the assembly. When John and the Syrian contingent arrived, a rival but far less numerous Council was opened; the commissioner Candidian, Count of the Domestics, who represented the Emperor, presided; and Cyril was condemned and deposed. Then the Roman legates appeared upon the scene, attended the assembly of Cyril, and signed the decree against Nestorius.
The shameless proceedings of the satellites of Cyril and the rabble whom they are collected are graphically described by Nestorius, whose house was guarded by soldiers to protect him from violence. “They acted in everything as if it was a war they were conducting, and the followers of the Egyptian and of Memnon (the bishop of Ephesus), who were abetting them, went about in the city girt and armed with clubs, men with high necks, performing strange antics with the yells of barbarians, snorting fiercely with horrible and unwonted noises, raging with extravagant doings, carrying bells about the city, and lighting fires in many places and casting into them all kinds of writings. Everything they did was a cause of amazement and fear; they blocked up the streets so that every one was obliged to flee and hide while they acted as masters of the situation, lying about drunk and besotted and shouting obscenities.”13 Such were the circumstances of the Third Ecumenical Council, which had gathered to pronounce on the true doctrine of the natures of Christ.
The Emperor had at first resolved to reject the decree against Nestorius, but afterwards he decided to carry out the rulings of both assemblies. The two Patriarchs were deposed; Nestorius retreated to his old convent at Antioch. But at Constantinople there was a strong ecclesiastical opposition to Nestorius; the clergy addressed a petition to the Emperor demanding justice for Cyril, and the monks, under the leadership of Dalmatius, excited the people.14 The popular demonstrations were aided by Cyril’s intrigues and a lavish distribution of bribes;15 Pulcheria doubtless threw her influence into the scale; and the Emperor was compelled to yield and to permit Cyril to resume his Patriarchal seat. Cyril then sought to come to terms with Antioch, and a new formula was invented — “the unconfused union of two natures” — which could be accepted both by the Alexandrines and by moderate men of the Antiochian school. Cyril subscribed to this creed in A.D. 433. Good Nestorians retreated to Edessa, and here their theology was in the ascendant until the Emperor Zeno (A.D. 489) took measures to extirpate Nestorianism and succeeded in driving it beyond the frontier. The subsequent fortunes of the sect are connected with Persian and Saracen history.
It is clear that throughout the whole controversy personal dislike of Nestorius, who was not an amiable or courteous man, played a considerable part. He was permitted to remain peacefully in his monastery for a few years, notwithstanding the urgent request of Pope Celestine that such a firebrand should be removed from all contact with men. But at length the Emperor adopted harsh measures against him (A.D. 435).16 He was denounced in an edict as sacrilegious, his books were condemned to the flames,17 and he was banished at first to Petra and then to Oasis in Upper Egypt (A.D. 435). He seems to have died in A.D. 451.18
The compromise of A.D. 433 was not final. The question was opened again by Dioscorus, who had succeeded Cyril (A.D. 444) in the see of Alexandria, and was jealous of the prestige of the theologians of Antioch. He set himself the task of destroying the Antiochian formula of “two natures or hypostaseis and one Christ.” His views found a warm supporter at Constantinople in a certain Eutyches, the archimandrite of a monastery, who had been prominent in the agitation against Nestorius, and enjoyed the favour of the eunuch Chrysaphius.19 Eutyches was charged with heresy; the Patriarch Flavian20 took up the matter and procured his condemnation at a local synod (A.D. 448). Eutyches appealed to Leo, the bishop of Rome; and Dioscorus urged the Emperor to summon a general Council. Theodosius, guided by the counsels of Chrysaphius who hated Flavian, yielded to the wishes of Alexandria, and the Council met at Ephesus in August A.D. 449.
In the meantime Leo had come to the conclusion that the views of Eutyches were heretical, and he wrote in this sense to the Emperor and the Patriarch. He claimed that he was himself the person who should decide and define the dogma by virtue of the authority residing in the see of St. Peter; there was no necessity for a General Council.21 But the Council was called, and Leo sent three delegates, committing to them a Dogmatic Epistle or Tome addressed to Flavian in which he formulated the true doctrine: the unity of two hypostatic natures in one person, wherein the properties of both natures were preserved.22 It was not explained how this union was possible, and a distinguished historian of dogma observes23 that Leo left off at the point where the speculation of Cyril began.
Dioscorus presided at the Council. The letter of Leo was not read, and the Roman representative did not vote. Eutyches was declared orthodox, and Flavian was deposed as having gone beyond the doctrine of the creed of Nicaea.24 Other more distinguished adherents of the Antiochian doctrine, including Theodoret, bishop of Cyrrhus, a notable theologian, were also deposed. The result of the proceedings was to annul the compromise of A.D. 433 and to reinstate the Cyrillian doctrine of the one incarnate nature of the God-Logos. The voting of many of the 115 bishops who signed the Acts was not free; they were overawed by the Imperial authorities and by the violence of a noisy crowd of monks from Syria. Yet it has been said, perhaps with truth, that this Council more than any other expressed the general religious feeling of the time, and would have permanently settled the controversy in the East if extraneous interests had not been involved.
The bishop of Rome denounced the “Robber Council,” as he called it, and prompted Valentinian III to propose to his cousin Theodosius the convention of a new Council in Italy. Theodosius replied that the recent Council had simply defended the rulings of Nicaea and Ephesus