Page:The Greek and Eastern churches.djvu/591

Rh wafted across on a cloud. So highly venerated was he, that Maximus, the Roman commander, before setting out on an expedition against those obscure people called the Blemmys, sought him out in the desert for his blessing, much to the saint's annoyance at the interruption. The idea that he joined the extreme party of Dioscurus after the council of Chalcedon may be an error. Be that as it may, undoubtedly he was a bitter leader in the persecution of Nestorius till the death of that unhappy ecclesiastic. Senuti is said to have lived to the wonderful age of 118, and to have died when Timothy Ælurus was patriarch. The remains of his writings are gathered up among the fragments of early Coptic literature. It is a singular fact that Senuti is never mentioned by any Greek or Latin author. Prominent as his friend Besa suggests his position at the council of Ephesus to have been, none of our other accounts of that council make the least reference to him. This silence rather favours the view that he did overstep the narrow line of orthodoxy in his unflagging opposition to Nestorianism. If that were the case, we can well understand why the friends and admirers of Cyril would observe a discreet silence with regard to a man who, though of dubious orthodoxy, had nevertheless been that great patriarch's chief trusted assistant. Among the Copts no saint could be more highly venerated; but the Copts are heretics.

The circumstances that led to the final severance of the Coptic Church have already been traced in earlier chapters. The decree of Chalcedon deposing Dioscurus was the direct cause. The thirteen bishops who had accompanied him were in a terrible dilemma. Hieracles, their spokesman, pointed to a canon of Nicæa, declaring that the whole of Egypt should follow the bishop of Alexandria and do nothing without him. It was of no