Page:Nestorius and his place in the history of Christian doctrine.djvu/49

Rh asking that the judgment might be handed over to others. As evidence of this, Nestorius quoted the abovementioned conclusion of (or supplement to) Cyril's letter to his agents, adding a sharp criticism.

We do not know which were the charges made against Cyril before the emperor and before Nestorius—they do not seem to have been of a dogmatic kind; but, in my opinion, nobody can rightly dispute that they were of decisive importance for the dogmatic accusations which Cyril brought against Nestorius.

There is, however, one argument which could perhaps be advanced against this. e, the Roman Catholic author of a famous history of the councils, objected that Cyril did not speak of the fact that his name was slandered by false accusers before his second letter to Nestorius, the so-called epistola dogmatica, which was written about the end of January 430, while even his first letter to Nestorius contained the dogmatic charges against him. The observation seems at first to be right. For Cyril's letter to his agents, which we have discussed, is contemporary with his epistola dogmatica to Nestorius, in spite of the differing tone of the two letters. Nevertheless Cyril spoke of his being