Page:Nestorius and his place in the history of Christian doctrine.djvu/52

40 narration gives the impression that the conversation between him and Cyril's agents took place some time before he received the first letter from Cyril. There are arguments against asserting that Nestorius was right in presuming this. I shall not lay any stress upon the fact that, according to Cyril's letter to pope Celestine, it was only the doctrine of Nestorius which gave him offence; for we have ground to distrust this holy man. And also the objection that the affair of the accusations against Cyril probably did not last a whole year or more, is not decisive. But it is certain that a reason for opposing the doctrine of Nestorius was to be found by Cyril in the party-difference between the Alexandrian and the Antiochian schools and in the rivalry between the sees of Alexandria and Constantinople. Cyril's letter to the Egyptian monks in which, about Easter 429, without mentioning Nestorius, he began to oppose his doctrine, really may have been brought forth by the party-difference alone. In Constantinople, too, in the very beginnings of Nestorius' time as bishop, there certainly were theologians and laymen who opposed his teaching for no other reason than because they were adherents of a different theological tradition. I leave, therefore, the question undecided as to whether the supplement-letter of Cyril to his agents was earlier than his first letter to Nestorius