Page:Nestorius and his place in the history of Christian doctrine.djvu/107

Rh because, as we saw, an ecumenical council of Ephesus never existed. It was only the party council of Cyril which condemned Nestorius, while the council of the Antiochians was on his side, and the question of doctrine was still undecided even when the council consisting of these two party councils was dissolved. The idea that Nestorius was condemned by "the holy ecumenical council" was only the result of the ecclesiastical-political transactions of which the union of 433 was the outcome. This fiction and the consent of the Antiochians, which they were ignominiously forced to give, cannot help us to decide the question, all the more so since Nestorius could have accepted the doctrinal basis of the peace, although his condemnation was its result.

The standard of measure for Nestorius' doctrine must, therefore, be the definition of t ecumenical council which gave the first decision about the christological question (although proved later to be a preliminary one), viz. the fourth ecumenical council of Chalcedon, of 451.

The definition of this council, which is to be seen not only in its creed but also in its recognition of Leo's letter to Flavian and Cyril's epistola dogmatica and epistola ad Orientales, was a compromise, as the Roman legates could not and would not give up the letter of Leo, while the majority of the Eastern bishops were for