shown by this letter was, that John of Antioch and his friends should be made willing to accept the judgment of his synod against Nestorius. John of Antioch yielded to Cyril at this point: to bring about the union he payed the heavy price of giving up his old friend. The same price was paid by almost all Antiochians who accepted the union, only Theodoret and a few others being excused from doing so.

From that time forth one could speak in ecclesiastical phraseology of the holy ecumenical council of Ephesus, which had condemned Nestorius. Nestorius could have accepted the confession of faith on which the union was based. It was, therefore, really tragic that the anathema against him was the price of the peace. He was now also robbed of his former friends, and there cannot be the least doubt that for this painful experience, too, he had to thank Saint Cyril.

et ipsa coadjuvet nos et ut insuper roget Marcellam et Droseriam, quia satis eam patienter auscultant...Et dominum meum sanctissimum Dalmatium abbatem roga, ut et imperatori mandet, terribili eum conjuratione constringens, et ut cubicularios omnes ita constringat, ne illius (viz. Nestorii) memoria ulterius fiat, et sanctum Eutychen, ut concertet pro nobis...Subjectus autem brevis (comp. above p. 55, note 2) ostendit, quibus hinc directae sint eulogiae, ut et ipse noveris, quantum pro tua sanctitate laboret Alexandrina ecclesia, quae tanta praestat his qui illic sunt; clerici enim, qui hic sunt, contristantur, quod ecclesia Alexandrina nudata sit hujus causa turbelae...De tua ecclesia praesta avaritiae quorum nosti, ne Alexandrinam ecclesiam contristent... Festinet autem sanctitas tua rogare dominam Pulcheriam, ut faciat dominum Lausum intrare et praepositum fieri, ut Chrysoretis (comp. above) potentia dissolvatur et sic dogma nostrum roboretur.

5

The last act of our tragedy may be treated shortly, but it stretches over a much longer period than any of the others. It was opened by the banishment of Nestorius to Oasis in the year 4351, and not until sixteen years later was it closed by Nestorius' death2.

We have only two accounts which give us information as to how this banishment of Nestorius came about. Nestorius himself, as we learn from Evagrius, narrated that for four years he had enjoyed at Antioch various tokens of esteem, but had then been banished to Oasis by order of Theodosius3. Evagrius adds that Nestorius did not say how fitting a measure this was, for also in Antioch Nestorius had not ceased his blasphemy, with the result that even Bishop John complained about it, and Nestorius was condemned to permanent exile1. The Nestorian legend, too, tells us that Nestorius had lived four years in Antioch and that then John of Antioch had caused his banishment out of jealousy of his influence". That the first part of this account goes back to Nestorius' own narration is made probable by its concurrence with the words of Nestorius in Evagrius. It is, therefore, probable that also the

1 Comp. below, note 3.

2 Comp. above, p. 19 and 22. Evagrius, h. e. 1, 7, ed. Bidez and Parmentier, p. 13, 12 ff. 4 1. c. p. 13, 16 ff.

5 M. Brière, La légende syriaque de Nestorius (Revue de l'Orient chrétien, 1910, p. 21; Nau, p. xxi, note 1).

account given about John of Antioch in both sources is derived from Nestorius. His banishment according to this account took place in the year 4351. 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 adherents2. The wording of this edict and the account of Evagrius that Nestorius had not ceased his blasphemy in Antioch could make possible the conjecture3 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 difficulties1. 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 Nestorius5, and Cyril was probably working with

1 Four years after the synod of Ephesus, comp. above, p. 57, note 3. 2 Mansi, v, 413 f.; cod. Theodosianus, 16, 5, 66.

3 Nestoriana, p. 88.

4 For according to Evagrius (1. c. p. 13, 15 f.) Nestorius mentioned in his Tragedy his banishment to Oasis.

5 Mansi, v, 271 B.

1

the same end in view. These latter are not much to be blamed for this wish. It is not the same with John of Antioch. He may have had, even if jealousy was out of the question, many grounds for finding the stay of Nestorius in Antioch disagreeable-his mere presence, after the union, was a reproach to him-but he has much impaired his good renown by this Judas-deed. And for Nestorius it was the consummation of his tragic fortune that his final banishment was caused by his former friend.

How rich the years of exile were in tragic events we have seen already in the first lecture1. I merely remark here that Nestorius in these years was even before his death a dead man for the world-I mean the orthodox church. He now was nothing but the condemned heretic, nothing but the cause of offence thrust out from the people of God.

He was really not dead: he hailed with joy the change of the situation after the robber-synod, hailed with joy Leo's letter to Flavian, hailed with joy the new council he saw in prospect2. He did not live to experience the fact that this council, too, condemned him and that also Theodoret, who even up to his death held to him, was forced to consent to this condemnation3. With this the tragedy of Nestorius' life came to an end. Now he was regarded by all in the church as a cursed heretic; now for him came to pass what,

1 Above, p. 17 f. 2 Comp. above, p. 25 f. 3 Mansi, vII, 188 f.

according to the edict of 435, was to be the fortune of his adherents: he had not only supported the punishment of being covered with ignominy during his lifetime, but also after his death did not escape from ignominy1.

The orthodox saw in his sufferings nothing but a just penalty: Nestorius himself called his life a tragedy. I, too, used the same expression. But his life was a tragedy only if he was guiltless. The question as to whether he was guiltless shall occupy us in the next two lectures.

III

In the last lecture we spoke about the tragedy of the life of Nestorius. Was it really a tragedy? His enemies regarded his sufferings as deserved punishment for his impiety. Were they wrong? Was Nestorius really the guiltless victim of a tragic fortune? He was. It is this which I wish to prove in this and the next lecture.

I do not mean that Nestorius was altogether guiltless in his life's misfortune. He was incautious, passionate and reckless, and this, as we saw in the preceding lecture, was not without unfavourable influence upon the course

1 Mansi, v, 413Β: μήτε ζῶντας τιμωρίας, μήτε θανόντας ἀτιμίας ἐκτὸς ὑπάρχειν.