Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/132

 110 THE DECLINE AND FALL was torn from her chariot, stripjied naked, (h'agged to the church, and inhumanly butchered by the hands of Peter the reader and a troop of savage and merciless fanatics : her flesh was scraped from her l)ones with sharp oyster shells, '*^' and her quivering limbs were delivered to the Hames. The just progress of inquiry and punishment was stopped by seasonable fjfifts; but the murder of Hypatia has imprinted an indelible stain on the character and religitm of Cyril of Alexandria.-' Nestori^, Superstition, perhaps, would more gently expiate the blood Conatanti- of a virgin than the banishment of a saint ; and Cyril had nople. A.D. ~, -' 42^ April 10 accompanied his uncle to the iniquitous synod of the Oak. When the memory of Chrysostom was restored and consecrated, the nephew of Theophilus, at the head of a dying faction, still maintained the justice of his sentence ; nor was it till after a tedious delay and an obstinate resistance that he yielded to the consent of the Catholic world. -"^ His enmity to the Byzantine pontiffs -^ was a sense of interest, not a sally of passion ; he envied their fortunate station in the sunshine of the Imperial court ; and he dreaded their upstart and)ition, whicii oppressed the metropolitans of Europe and Asia, invaded the provinces of Antioch and Alexandria, and measured their diocese by the limits of the empire. The long moderation of Atticus, the mild usurper of the throne of Chrysostom, suspended the ani- mosities of the eastern patriarchs ; but Cyril was at length awakened by the exaltation of a rival more worthy of his esteem and hatred. After the short and troubled reign of Sisinnius bishop of Constantinoj)le, the factions of the clergy and people 215 '0(7Tpa/tois arelXou Ka iieKriSov Beaa-irdcrat'Tt';, &c. Oyster shells were plentifully strewed on the sea-teach before the Csesareum. I may therefore prefer the literal sense, without rejecting the metaphorical version of te^ulae, tiles, which is used by M. de Valois. I am ignorant, and the assassins were probably regardless, whether their victim was yet alive. [ai'tiAoi- means simply X-e/W (by cutting her throat?), not scraped.' 2' These exploits of St. Cyril are recorded by Socrates (1. vii. c. 13, 14, 15) ; and the most reluctant bigotry is compelled to copy an historian who coolly styles the murderers of Hypatia arSpc? to ifipot-ijaa. evStpixoi. At the mention of that injmed name, I am pleased to observe a blush even on the cheek of Baronius (A.D. 415, No. 48). 2"' He was d'.;af to the entreaties of Atticus of Constaniino[)le, and of Isidore of Pelubium, and yielded only (if we may believe Nicephorus, 1. .iv. c. 18) to the personal intercession of the Virgin. Yet in his last years he still muttered that John Chrysostom had been justly condemned (Tillemont. Mem. Ecclds. tom. xiv. p. 278-282 ; Baronius, Annal. Eccles. A.D. 412, No. 46-64). "^ See their characters in the history of Socrates (1. vii. c. 25-28) ; their power and pretensions, in the huge compilation of Thomassin (Discipline de I'Eglise, tom. i. p. 80-91).