A History Of The Church In Six Books by EvagriusCHAPTER III
LETTER FROM CYRIL TO NESTORIUS.—COUNCIL OF EPHESUSWHEN Cyril, the renowned bishop of the church of the Alexandrians, had communicated to Nestorius his reprobation of these transactions, and he, in rejoinder, paid no regard to what was addressed to him by Cyril, and by Celestine, bishop of the elder Rome, but was irreverently pouring forth his own vomit over the whole church, there was just occasion for the convening of the first synod of Ephesus, at the injunction of the younger Theodosius, sovereign of the Eastern empire, by the issuing of imperial letters to Cyril and the presidents of the holy churches in every quarter, naming, at the same time, as the day of meeting, the sacred Pentecost, on which the life-giving Spirit descended upon us. Nestorius, on account of the short distance of Ephesus from Constantinople, arrives early; and Cyril too, with his company, came before the appointed day; but John, the president of the church of Antioch, with his associate bishops, was behind the appointed time; not intentionally, as his defence has been thought by many to have sufficiently proved, but because he could not muster his associates with sufficient despatch, who were at a distance of what would be a twelve days’ journey to an expeditious traveller from the city formerly named from Antiochus, but now the City of God, and in some cases more; and Ephesus was then just thirty days’ journey from Antioch. He stoutly defended himself on the ground that the observance of what is called the New Lord’s Day by his bishops in their respective sees, was an insuperable impediment to his arriving before the stated day. |