Page:Nestorius and his place in the history of Christian doctrine.djvu/70

58 account given about John of Antioch in both sources is derived from Nestorius. His banishment according to this account took place in the year 435. In the same year, on the 30th of July, Theodosius, the emperor, issued an edict which ordered the impious books of the detestable Nestorius against the orthodox piety and against the decrees of the synod of Ephesus to be burnt, and which gave the name of Simonians (that of an ancient heretical party) to his adherents. The wording of this edict and the account of Evagrius that Nestorius had not ceased his blasphemy in Antioch could make possible the conjecture that the banishment of Nestorius and this edict against his books were caused by what he had written in Antioch, especially by his Tragedy which dealt with the decrees of the synod of Ephesus. But this conjecture has its difficulties. We are, therefore, obliged to take the edict as referring to the earlier books of Nestorius and the account of Evagrius to spoken blasphemies. All the more important in this connection must have been the instigatory efforts of John of Antioch. Pope Celestine, too, petitioned the emperor as early as 432 for the exile of Nestorius, and Cyril was probably working with