Page:Dictionary of Christian Biography and Literature (1911).djvu/573

 Cyril and Memnon, bp. of Ephesus, and of excommunication on all the other prelates of the council, until they should have condemned Cyril's "capitula," which they declared tainted not only with Apollinarian, but with Arian and Eunomian heresy (ib. 596, 637, 657, 664 passim). The sentences of excommunication and deposition were posted up in the city. There John vouchsafed an audience to the deputies of the other council. They communicated its decrees as to Nestorius, but received, they asserted, no reply but insults and blows (ib. 764). Returning to Cyril they formally complained of John's treatment, of which they shewed marks on their persons. The council immediately declared John separated from their communion until he explained this conduct.

John's attempts to reduce Cyril and his adherents to submission by his own authority proved fruitless, and he had recourse to the emperor and the ecclesiastical power at Constantinople. Several letters were written to Theodosius, to the empresses Pulcheria and Eudocia, the clergy, the senate, and the people of that city (Labbe, iii. 601–609; Liberat. c. vi.) to explain the tardiness of John's arrival and to justify the sentence pronounced on Cyril, Memnon, and the other bishops. Theodosius wrote to the council, declaring their decisions null (Labbe, iii. 704). The letter reached Ephesus June 29. John and his friends welcomed it with benedictions, assuring the emperor that they had acted from pure zeal for the faith which was imperilled by the Apollinarianism of Cyril's "anathematisms." Relying on imperial favour, John strove in vain to persuade the Ephesians to demand a new bishop in the place of Memnon. Meantime, the legates of Celestine had arrived from Rome, and the council, strengthened by their presence and the approbation of the bp. of Rome, proceeded, July 16, to summon John before them. Their deputation was informed that John could hold no intercourse with excommunicated persons (ib. 640). On this the council declared null all the acts of John's "conciliabulum," and, on his persisting, separated him and the bishops who had joined him from the communion of the church, pronounced them disqualified for all episcopal functions, and published their decree openly (ib. 302).

Two counter-deputations from the opposite parties presented themselves to Theodosius in the first week of September at Chalcedon. John himself did not shrink from an open defence of the orthodoxy of Nestorius, declaring his deposition illegal and exposing the heresy of Cyril's anathematisms (Baluz. pp. 837, 839). To support their evidently failing cause, John and his fellow-deputies wrote to some leading prelates of the West, the bps. of Milan, Aquileia, and Ravenna, and Rufus of Thessalonica, laying before them in earnest terms the heretical character of Cyril's doctrines (Theod. Ep. 112; Labbe, iii. 736), but apparently without favourable result. The victory was substantially with the Cyrillian party. After six audiences the emperor, weary of the fruitless strife, declared his final resolve. Nestorius, generally abandoned by his supporters, was permitted to retire to his former monastery of St. Euprepius at Antioch. Maximian, a presbyter of Constantinople, in defiance of the protest of John and his party, was consecrated (Oct. 25) bp. of the imperial see in his room. Memnon and Cyril were reinstated: the former to remain at Ephesus as bishop; Cyril and the other bishops to return home. John and the Orientals were only not formally condemned because the dogmatic question had not been discussed. Before he retired vanquished, John delivered a final remonstrance. The churches of Chalcedon were closed against the Oriental bishops, but they had obtained a spacious hall for public worship and preaching. Large crowds assembled to listen to the powerful sermons of Theodoret and the milder exhortations of John. The mortification with which John left Chalcedon was deepened by the events of his homeward journey. At Ancyra he found that letters from its bp. Theodotus, who was one of the eight deputies of the council, as well as from Firmus of Caesarea, and Maximian the newly appointed bp. of Constantinople, had commanded that he and his companions should be regarded as excommunicate.

From Ancyra John proceeded to Tarsus. Here, in his own patriarchate, he immediately held a council, together with Alexander of Hierapolis and the other deputies, at which he confirmed the deposition of Cyril and his brother-commissioners (Baluz, 840, 843, 847) Theodoret and the others engaged never to consent to the deposition of Nestorius. On reaching Antioch, about the middle of Dec., John summoned a very numerously attended council of bishops, which pronounced a fresh sentence against Cyril and wrote to Theodosius, calling upon him to take measures for the general condemnation of the doctrines of Cyril, as contrary to the Nicene faith which they were resolved to maintain to the death (Socr. H. E. vii. 34; Liberat. c. vi.; Baluz. p. 741, c. xxxix.). Soon after his return to Antioch John, accompanied by six bishops, visited the venerable Acacius of Beroea, whose sympathy in the controversy had greatly strengthened and consoled him. The old man was deeply grieved to hear the untoward result of their proceedings.

The battle was now over and the victory remained with Cyril. His return to Alexandria was a triumphal progress (Labbe, iii. 105). But the victory had been purchased by a schism in the church. Alexandria and Antioch were two hostile camps. For three years a bitter strife was maintained. The issue, however, was never doubtful. John, alarmed for his own safety, soon began to show symptoms of yielding. The emperor, at the urgent demand of Celestine, had pronounced the banishment of Nestorius. John might not unreasonably fear a demand for his own deposition. It was time he should make it clear that he had no real sympathy with the errors of the heresiarch. The pertinacity with which Nestorius continued to promulgate the tenets which had proved so ruinous to the peace of the church irritated John. The newly elected bp. of Rome, Sixtus, who had warmly embraced Cyril's cause, in a letter addressed to the prelates of the East in the interests of reunion, 432, declared that John might be received again into the Catholic