Page:Guettée papacy.djvu/119

Rh West, of whom Pope Celestine was the interpreter, to prove that its sentence against Nestorius was canonical.

In view of these facts and this doctrine, it will be admitted that St. Cyril might have presided at the council without any mandate from the Pope; that if he rejoiced that he represented Celestine, it was only because he thereby took precedence of Nestorius, in spite of the canon of the Council of Constantinople, which gave to Nestorius the first rank after the Bishop of Rome; and that the three deputies of the Pope did not go to Ephesus to direct the assembly or confirm it, but to convey the adhesion of the Western bishops assembled in council by Celestine.

It is false, therefore, to say that the Pope presided at the council by St. Cyril, who in such case would have been his legate. It is one thing to yield for a particular reason the honours attached by the Church to the title of first bishop, and quite another to delegate the right to preside at an œcumenical council. The position of legate of the Bishop of Rome did not carry, with it the right to preside, as we see in councils where the deputies of that bishop were present, but did not preside. The prerogatives of first bishop delegated to St. Cyril, gave him precedence over Nestorius — in case that heretic had chosen to insist on presiding over the Council of Ephesus, by virtue of the third canon of the Council of Constantinople. The Romish theologians have, therefore, grossly misunderstood the fact, of which they would make a weapon against the Catholic doctrine. They have not observed that even after the arrival of the legates of the Bishop of Rome at Ephesus, when St. Cyril did not preside at the council, it was Juvenal, Bishop of Jerusalem, who had that honour. The Bishop of Antioch having taken sides with Nestorius, and not attending the assemblies, the right to preside fell upon the Bishop of Jerusalem; since, according to the hier-