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 manual labour (i. 49), the disorderliness of those who haunted cities, and frequented public shows, as if all that "the angelic life" required were "a cloak, a staff, and a beard" (i. 92; cf. i. 220, and Chalcedon, can. 4). He rebukes a physician who is morally diseased (Ep. i. 391), denounces a homicide who went "swaggering" through Pelusium (i. 297), warns a wicked magistrate to flee from eternal punishment (i. 31), remonstrates with a soldier for invading the cells of monks and teaching them false doctrine (i. 327), and with a general for attempting to take away the privilege of sanctuary (i. 174), etc. In a letter probably addressed to Pulcheria he reprobates the conduct of some imperial envoys, who had compromised their Christianity in the negotiation of a peace (iv. 143).

The two great church questions in which Isidore took a decided part brought him into collision with his own patriarch, Cyril of Alexandria. The first related to the recognition of St. Chrysostom's memory as worthy of the reverence of faithful Christians. Theophilus of Alexandria had practically procured his deposition and exile; the West had supported Chrysostom while he lived and afterwards had suspended communion with churches which would not insert his name in their diptychs. Antioch had yielded; even Atticus of Constantinople had done so for peace' sake. Cyril, the nephew and successor of Theophilus, held fast to his uncle's position. Isidore had loved and honoured "holy John," if he had not, as Nicephorus says (xiv. 30), been instructed by him. In a letter to a grammarian he quotes Libanius's panegyric on his oratory (Ep. ii. 42); to another Isidore he specially recommends "the most wise John's" commentary on the Romans (v. 32); in another letter, recommending his treatise "on the Priesthood," he calls him "the eye of the Byzantine church, and of every church" (i. 156); and he describes the "tragedy of John" in the bitter words: "Theophilus, who was building-mad, and worshipped gold, and had a spite against my namesake" (see Socr. vi. 9), was "put forward by Egypt to persecute that pious man and true theologian" (Ep. i. 152). Similarly he wrote to Cyril: Put a stop to these contentions: do not involve the living Church in a private vengeance prosecuted out of duty to the dead, nor entail on her a perpetual division [αἰώνιον διχόμοιαν] under pretence of piety" (i. 570, transl. by Facund.). Cyril took this advice, and the "Joannite" quarrel came to an end, probably in 417–418 (Tillem. xiv. 281; see Photius, Bibl. 232).

The other matter was far more momentous. When Cyril was at the council of Ephesus endeavouring to crush Nestorianism, Isidore wrote to him: "Prejudice does not see clearly; antipathy does not see at all. If you wish to be clear of both these affections of the eyesight, do not pass violent sentences, but commit causes to just judgment. God . . . was pleased to 'come down and see' the cry of Sodom, thereby teaching us to inquire accurately. For many of those at Ephesus accuse you of pursuing a personal feud, instead of seeking the things of Jesus Christ in an orthodox way. 'He is,' they say, 'the nephew of Theophilus,'" etc. (Ep. i. 310; cf. a Latin version, not quite accurate, by Facundus, l.c.). He had, however, no sympathy with Nestorius: in the close of the letter he seems to contrast him with Chrysostom; in the next letter he urges Theodosius II. to restrain his ministers from "dogmatizing" to the council, the court being then favourable to Nestorius. Isidore was, indeed, very zealous against all tendencies to Apollinarianism: he disliked the phrase, "God's Passion," he insisted that the word "Incarnate" should be added—it was the Passion of Christ (Ep. i. 129); he urged on Cyril the authority of Athanasius for the phrase, "from two natures" (i. 323), and he even uses the yet clearer phrase, ultimately adopted by the council of Chalcedon, "in both natures" (i. 405); but he repeatedly insists on the unity of the Person of Christ, the God-Man, which was the point at issue in the controversy (i. 23, 303, 405). He says that "the Lamb of God," as the true Paschal victim, "combined the fire of the divine essence with the flesh that is now eaten by us" (i. 219); in a letter to a Nestorianizing "scholasticus" he calls the Virgin (not simply Theotokos, but) "Mother of God Incarnate" (Θεοῦ σαρκωθέντος μητέρα," i. 54). When Cyril, two years later, came to an understanding with John of Antioch, Isidore exhorted him to be consistent and said that his most recent writings shewed him to be "either open to flattery or an agent of levity, swayed by vainglory instead of imitating the great athletes" of the faith, etc. (i. 324). Perhaps these letters were "the treatise to" (or against) Cyril, which Evagrius ascribes to Isidore. Isidore was better employed when he uttered warnings against the rising heresy of Eutychianism: "To assert only one nature of Christ after the Incarnation is to take away both, either by a change of the divine or an abatement of the human" (i. 102); among various errors he mentions "a fusion and co-mixture and abolition of the natures," urging his correspondent, a presbyter, to cling to the "inspired" Nicene faith (iv. 99).

His theology was generally characterized by accuracy and moderation. In a truly Athanasian spirit (cf. Athan. de Decr. Nic. 22) he writes, "We are bound to know and believe that God is, not to busy ourselves as to what He is" (i.e. attempt to comprehend His essence; Ep. ii. 299). He is emphatic against the two extremes of Arianism and Sabellianism. "If God was always like to Himself, He must have been always Father; therefore the Son is co-eternal" (i. 241, cf. i. 389; and Eunomians exceed Arians in making the Son a servant (i. 246). Sabellians misinterpret John x. 30, where ἕν shews the one essence, and the plural ἐσμεν the two hypostases (i. 138). In the Trinity, the Godhead is one, but the hypostases are three (i. 247). In Heb. i. 3 the ἀπαύγασμα indicates the coeternity, the χαρακτήρ the personality; it is in things made that "before" and "after" have place, not in "the dread and sovereign Trinity;" (iii. 18; cf. the Quicunque, ver. 25). The belief in three Persons in one essence excludes alike Judaism and polytheism (Ep. iii. 112). Of John xiv. 28 he observes that "greater" or "less than" implies identity