works, afterwards called The Three Chapters, put an effectual stop to the progress of Nestorianism (62); but still there were, ever since, many, both in the East and West, who endeavoured to uphold this impious heresy.

39. The most remarkable among the supporters of Nestorianism were two Spanish bishops-Felix, Bishop of Urgel, and Elipandus, Archbishop of Toledo; these maintained that Jesus Christ, according to his human nature, was not the natural, but only the adopted, Son of God, or, as they said, the nuncupative, or Son in name alone. This heresy had its origin about the year 780. Elipandus preached this heresy in the Asturias and Gallicia, and Felix in Septimania, a part of Narbonic Gaul, called at a later period, Langue doc. Elipandus brought over to his side Ascarieus, Archbishop of Braga, and some persons from Cordova (63). This error had many opponents, the principal were Paulinus, Patriarch of Aquilea; Beatus, a priest and monk in the mountains of Asturias; Etherius, his disciple, and afterwards Bishop of Osma; but its chief impugner was Alcuinus, who wrote seven books against Felix, and four against Elipandus. Felix was first condemned in Narbonne, in the year 788, next in Ratisbon, in 792, and in 794, in a Synod held at Frankfort, by the bishops of France, who, as Noel Alexander tells us, condemned him with this reservation (64): "Reservato per omnia juris privilegio Summi Pontificis Domini et Patris nostri Adriani Primæ Sædis Beatissimi Papæ." This error was finally twice condemned in 799, in Rome, under Adrian and Leo III. (65). Felix abjured his errors in the Council of Ratisbon, in 792; but it appears he was not sincere, as he taught the same doctrine afterwards. In the year 799, he was charged with relapsing by Alcuinus, in a Synod held at Aix-la-Chapelle; he confessed his error, and gave every sign of having truly returned to the Church, but some writings of his, discovered after his death, leave us in doubt of the sincerity of his conversion, and of his eternal happiness. This was not the case with Elipandus, for, though he resisted the truth a long time, he at length bowed to the decision of the Roman Church, and died in her communion, as many authors, quoted by Noel Alexander, testify (66).

40. Who would believe that, after seeing Nestorius condemned by a General Council, celebrated by such a multitude of bishops, conducted with such solemnity and accuracy, and afterwards accepted by the whole Catholic Church, persons would be found to defend him, as innocent, and charge his condemnation as invalid and unjust. Those who do this are surely heretics, whose chief study has always been to reject the authority of Councils and the

(62) Hermant. t. 1, c. 202. (63) Fleury, t. 6, l. 44, n. 50. (65) Graves, t. 3; Colloq. 3, p. 55.

s. 8, c. 2, a. 3, f. 2. cit. c. 2, a. 3, f. 1.

(64) N. Alex. t. 12, (66) Nat. Alex. loc.

Pope, and thus sustain their own errors. The history of Nestorianism would be incomplete without a knowledge of the modern defenders of the heresy, and the arguments made use of by them. Calvin was the first to raise the standard, and he was followed by his disciples, Albertin, Giles Gaillard, John Croye, and David de Roden. This band was joined by another Calvinistic writer, in 1645, who printed a work, but did not put his name to it, in which he endeavours to show that Nestorius should not be ranked with the heretics, but with the doctors of the Church, and venerated as a martyr, and that the Fathers of the Council of Ephesus ought to be considered Eutychians, as well as St. Cyril, St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, St. Dionisius of Alexandria, St. John Chrysostom, and St. Hilary, who give it such praise. This book was refuted by the learned Petavius, in the year 1646, in the sixth book of his work on Theological Dogmas. Finally, Samuel Basnage, in his Annals (67), has joined with Calvin and the other authors abovenamed, and has taken up the defence of Nestorius; he has even the hardihood to declare, that the Council of Ephesus had filled the world with tears.

41. We shall let Basnage speak for himself. He says, first, the Council of Ephesus was not a General one, but only a particular Synod, as the bishops refused to wait either for the Pope's Legates, or for the other bishops of the East. As far as the Legates are concerned, we see (No. 28.) that St. Cyril assisted at the Council from the beginning, and that he had been already nominated by the Pope as President; that a few days after, the other Legates arrived, and that they confirmed the Council. It is true all the bishops of the East did not attend it, for eighty-nine bishops seceded, and formed a cabal apart, in the very city of Ephesus, in which they deposed St. Cyril; but a few days after, the eighty-nine were reduced to thirty-seven, among whom were the Pelagian bishops, and several others already deposed; and the rest, when their eyes were opened to the truth, united themselves to the Fathers of the Council, so that Theodoret, who at first adhered to the party of John of Antioch, wrote to Andrew of Samosata: "Pars maxima Israelis consentit inimicis, pauci vero valde sunt salvi, ac sustinent pro pietate certamen:" but John himself, afterwards, together with Theodoret and the rest who repented, subscribed to the Council, which then was recognized as Ecumenical by the whole Church. With what face, then, can Basnage say that it was a particular, and not a General Council?

42. Basnage says next (68), that it is a false supposition of Noel Alexander, that Nestorius taught that there were two persons in Christ, or denied that Mary was the true Mother of God, and he was condemned, he says, only because he was not well understood;

(67) Basuage, ad an. 444, n. 13.

(68) Basnage, l. cit. ad an. 430.

but how does he prove this as to the maternity of the Blessed Virgin? By saying that Nestorius, in a certain letter he wrote to John of Antioch, admits, that as far as the words of the Gospel go, he has no objection that the Virgin should be piously called the Mother of God, but these words he afterwards interpreted in his own way. But why should we lose time in trying to interpret these obscure and equivocal expressions of his, when he expressly declares more than once, that Mary was not the Mother of God, otherwise the Gentiles ought to be excused for adoring the mothers of their gods. "Has God," he says, "a Mother?-therefore Paganism is excusable. Mary brought not forth God, but she brought forth a man, the instrument of the Divinity." These are his own words, quoted by Basnage himself, and he also relates that the monks of the Archimandrite Basil, in their petition to the Emperor Theodosius, stated that Nestorius (69) said, that Mary only brought forth a man, and that nothing but flesh could be born of the flesh, and, therefore, they required, that in a General Council, the foundation of the Faith should be left intact, that is, that the Word with the flesh, taken from Mary, suffered and died for the Redemption of mankind. We have, besides, a letter written by Nestorius to the Pope St. Celestine (70), in which he complains that the clergy, "aperte blasphemant, Deum Verbum tamquam originis initium de Christotocho Virgine sumsisse. Sed hanc Virginem Christotochon ausi sunt cum modo quodam Theotocon dicere, cum Ss. illi Patres per Nicæam nihil amplius de S. Virgine dixissent, nisi quia Jesus Christus incarnatus est ex Spiritu Sancto de Maria Virgine;" and he adds, "Verbum Theotocon ferri potest propter inseparabile Templum Dei Verbi ex ipsa, non quia ipsa Mater sit Verbi Dei, nemo enim antiquiorem se parit:" thus, he denies in the plainest terms, that the Blessed Virgin is Theotocon, the Mother of the Word of God, but only allows her to be Christotocon, the Mother of Christ; but St. Celestine answers him (71): "We have received your letters containing open blasphemy," and he adds that this truth, that the only Son of God was born of Mary, is the promise to us of life and salvation.

43. Let us now see what Nestorius says of Jesus Christ. No nature, he says, can subsist without its proper subsistence, and this is the origin of his error, for he therefore gives two persons to Christ, Divine and human, as he had two natures, and he therefore said that the Divine Word was united to Christ after he was formed a perfect man with appropriate human subsistence and personality. He says: "Si Christus perfectus Deus, idemque perfectus homo intelligitur, ubi naturæ est perfectio, si hominis natura non subsistit" (72)? He also said that the union of the two natures was

(69) Habetur in Sess. 4; Con. Col. 1103. (70) Sess. 4; Con. Col. 1021. 4: Con. Col. 1023. (72) Tom. 5; Con. Col. 1004

(71) Tom.

according to grace, or by the dignity or honor of Filiation given to the Person of Christ, and he, therefore, in general, did not call the union of the two natures a union at all, but propinquity, or inhabitation; he thus admits two united, or more properly speaking, conjoined natures, but not a true unity of person, and by two natures understands two personalities, and therefore could not bear to hear it said in speaking of Jesus Christ, that God was born, or suffered, or died. In his letter to St. Cyril, quoted by Basnage, he says: "My brother, to ascribe birth, or suffering, or death, to the Divine Word by reason of this appropriation, is to follow the Pagans or the insane Apollinares." These expressions prove that he did not believe that the two natures were united in one Person. When his priest Anastasius, preaching to the people, said: "Let no one call Mary the Mother of God, it is not possible that God should be born of man," and the people, horrified with the blasphemy, called on Nestorius to remove the scandal given by Anastasius, he went up into the pulpit, and said: "I never would call him God, who has been formed only two or three months," and he never called Jesus Christ God, but only the temple or habitation of God, as he wrote to St. Cyril. It is proper, he said, and conformable to ecclesiastical tradition, to confess that the body of Christ is the temple of Divinity, and that it is joined by so sublime a connexion to his Divine self, that we may say his Divine nature appropriates to itself something which otherwise would belong to the body alone. Here, then, are the very words of Nestorius himself, and nothing can be more clear than that he means to say that Christ is only the temple of God, but united to God in such a manner by Grace, that it might be said that the Divine nature appropriated the qualities proper to humanity. Now, Basnage does not deny that these are the letters and expressions of Nestorius, and how then can he say that he spoke in a pious and Catholic sense, and that the Council of Ephesus, by his condemnation, filled the world with tears, when Sixtus III., St. Leo the Great, and the fifth General Council, together with so many other doctors and learned writers, received the Council of Ephesus as most certainly Ecumenical, and all have called and considered Nestorius a heretic. Basnage, however, prefers following Calvin and his adherents, instead of the Council of Ephesus, the fifth Council, the Pope, and all the Catholic doctors. Selvaggi, the annotator of Mosheim, is well worthy of being read on this question (73); he has six very excellent reflections, and makes several useful remarks about Luther and the other modern heretics, who seek to discredit St. Cyril and the Council of Ephesus. It is the interest of all heretics to weaken the authority of Councils, that there may be no power to condemn them, and expose their errors to the world. But I remark that the devil has

(73) Selvag. in Mosheim, Part II. n. 82, p. 729.

made it a particular study to ruin, by his partisans, the credit of the Council of Ephesus, to remove from our sight the immense love which our God has shown us, by becoming man and dying for our love. Men do not love God, because they do not reflect that he has died for love of them, and the devil endeavours not only to remove this thought from our minds, but to prevent us from thinking it even possible.

ARTICLE IV.

THE HERESY OF EUTYCHES.

SEC. I. THE SYNOD OF ST. FLAVIAN. THE COUNCIL OR CABAL OF EPHESUS, CALLED THE "LATROCINIUM," OR COUNCIL OF ROBBERS.

44. Beginning of Eutyches; he is accused by Eusebius of Dorileum. 45. St. Flavian receives the Charge. 46. Synod of St. Flavian. 47. Confession of Eutyches in the Synod. 48. Sentence of the Synod against Eutyches. 49. Complaints of Eutyches. 50. Eutyches writes to St. Peter Chrysologus, and to St. Leo. 51. Character of Dioscorus. 52 & 53. Cabal at Ephesus. 54. St. Flavian is deposed, and Eusebius of Dorileum. 55. The Errors of Theodore of Mopsuestia. 56. Death of St. Flavian. 57. Character of Theodoret. 58 & 59. Writings of Theodoret against St. Cyril. Defence of Theodoret. 60. Dioscorus excommunicates St. Leo. 61. Theodosius approved the Council or Cabal, and dies. 62. Reign of St. Pulcheria and Marcian.

44. THE heresy of Eutyches sprung up (1) in the year 448, eighteen years after the Council of Ephesus. Eutyches was a monk and priest; he was also the abbot of a monastery near Constantinople, containing three hundred monks; he was a violent opponent of his Archbishop, Nestorius, and accused him at the Council of Ephesus, where he went in person to testify to his prevarications, so that he was considered by the friends of St. Cyril as one of the staunchest defenders of the Faith (2). St. Leo having received a letter from him, informing him that Nestorianism was again raising its head (3), answered him, approving of his zeal, and encouraging him to defend the Church; imagining that he was writing at the time against the real Nestorians, while he, in that letter, meant all the while the Catholics, whom he looked upon as infected with Nestorian principles (4). Eusebius, Bishop of Dorileum, in Phrygia, was also one of the most zealous opponents of Nestorius, for, while yet only a layman, in the year 429, he had the courage to stand up and reprove him publicly for his errors (5). (No. 22. supra.) The conformity of their opinions, therefore, made him a friend of Eutyches, but in the course of their intimacy he, at length, perceived that he (Eutyches) went too far and fell into heretical propositions (6). He endeavoured then for a long time, by reasoning

(1) Nat. Alex. t. 10, c. 3, c. 155; Fleury, t. 4, l. 27, n. 23. (4) Fleury, t. 4, l. 27, n. 23. ibid. n. 16; Fleury, cit. n. 23;

ar. 13, s. 1; Baron. An. 448, ex. n. 19; Hermant, t. 1,

(2) Liberat. Brev. c. 11. (3) St. Leo, Ep. 19, ¿ 6. (5) Sulp. l. 25, n. 2, ap. Fleury, cit. n. 23. (6) Orsi, Nat. Alex. t. 10, ar. 13, s. 2.