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XVII.]

THE COUNCIL OF EPHESUS.

313

the second Council, the bishops of Rome and Alexandria being on opposite sides; and it is plain that the theory had not yet been heard of in the East which would ascribe the headship of all Councils to the bishop of Rome, present or absent.

I have already remarked to you on the difference between the theological schools of Alexandria and of Antioch, the tendencies of the one being in the direction of mysticism, those of the other in that of rationalism; the one accentuating more strongly our Lord's Divinity, the other His humanity. The confusion that reigned in the Eastern Church for the next two centuries arose from the fact that Alexandria, which triumphed at the third General Council, was defeated at the fourth. Reasons of policy had always inclined Rome to support Alexandria against Constantinople; but at this time it chanced through a rare contingency, that the see of Rome was held by a theologian capable of forming an opinion of his own on a doctrinal question. Pope Leo's decision turned the scale against Alexandria; and the result was that many of the same men who had been on the winning and orthodox side at the first of these two Councils unexpectedly found themselves on the heretical side at the other; and it was this reverse of fortune more than anything else which prevented Chalcedon from giving peace to the Eastern Church, there being always hope that a similar change of parts might take place again. You can guess what confusion there would be in the Roman Church were the Vatican Council now reassembled, and if the bishops who had spoken against infallibility, and only yielded at the last moment on the former occasion, now played the leading part, and if Cardinal Manning, and the other leading men who had triumphed before, were now cast out as heretics.

However, the Alexandrians came to the second Council of Ephesus prepared to carry all before them-and so, in fact, they did. It is notorious with what good reason this Council was called the 'Synod of robbers;' but the method of deciding theological questions by physical force, though highly developed on that occasion, did not originate then nor did it come to an end then. In theological violence Alexandria had

a bad pre-eminence. What a potentate the bishop there was may be judged from a scene that took place later at Chalcedon. The proceedings there had been very unfavourable to Egypt, the bishop of Alexandria having been deposed; and no doubt it was painful to Egyptian bishops to subscribe the formula adopted by the Council; but the ground alleged for their refusal, and which the Council at length accepted as valid, was, that it would be as much as their lives were worth when they got home if they took any step unsanctioned by the bishop of Alexandria. They threw themselves on the ground, imploring the pity of the members of the Council: 'Have mercy on us; pity our grey hairs; take our sees if you will, but spare our lives; don't send us home to certain death; if we must die let us die here.' The bishop of Alexandria had a sturdy militia zealous to execute his orders. I have told of the descent of monks from the Nitrian monasteries to avenge his slighted authority; but he had defenders closer at hand in the Parabolani, a charitable corporation whose duties were concerned with attendance on the sick, and with the burial of the dead, and who were appointed by the bishop and were eager to execute his orders. Possibly the nature of their duties made them heedless of life; but they appear to have been a most violent and turbulent set of men. To their charge has been laid the murder of Hypatia; at all events, we read immediately after that event of complaints made to the emperor, in consequence of which the appointment and control of these men was transferred from the bishop to the civil authorities, though things soon reverted to the old arrangement.

At both Councils of Ephesus the ships that brought the prelates from Alexandria brought also a strong detachment of the Bishop's bodyguard. At the first Council the sailors of the Egyptian ships were reinforced by a body of stout peasants, whom Cyril's ally, Memnon of Ephesus, brought up from his farms; and bishops of Nestorian leanings had to complain of the intimidation to which they were subjected, not only out of doors but in their houses. At the second Council, besides the parabolani, there came from the borders of Syria and Persia a horde of savage monks, well exercised in putting down Nestorianism by physical force, whose irruption brought the

XVII.]

THE SECOND COUNCIL OF Ephesus.

315

proceedings of the Council to an end in a scene of awful confusion. Even when only the members of the Council were present, the bishops cannot be said to have voted with perfect freedom, when the assertion of two natures in Christ was received with cries of, 'away with him; burn him alive; cut him in two; as he has divided so let him be divided.' In such a temper of the meeting the acquittal of Eutyches was obtained with tolerable unanimity; and if the president, Dioscorus, had been content to stop there, this synod might have passed as not more disorderly than some others. But when he proceeded to move the deposition of the bishop of Constantinople cries of remonstrance were heard. The chief Roman legate expressed dissent in Latin; and his κovтpаSIKITOúp has been duly recorded in the proceedings of the Council. Some leading bishops threw themselves at the feet of the throne of Dioscorus, and embracing his knees implored him to be merciful. Then he cried out that violence was being used towards him, and called for the assistance of the civil power. The doors of the Church were opened; soldiers, monks, parabolani, rushed in, and a scene of wild confusion ensued. The bishop of Constantinople was knocked down and trampled on; and the only doubtful point is whether it was not Dioscorus himself who struck the first blow, and who kicked him after he was down. The evidence to that effect might perhaps be enough to produce conviction, if it were not outweighed by the fact that afterwards, at Chalcedon, when no misdeeds of Dioscorus were likely to be passed over in silence, this one was not mentioned. But certain it is that the bishop of Constantinople, within three days, died of the ill-usage he had received. Meanwhile the other bishops of the minority who tried to escape found the doors of the Church again locked. Some tried to hide under the benches; one fled into the sacristy. They were pulled out and told that they must not go till they had subscribed the decision of the Council. But there had not been time to write the proceedings out; and if they were once allowed to go away, it was not likely that their signatures could be had. So before they were let go they were made to subscribe their names to blank sheets, to be filled up afterwards.

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An amusing scene took place when these bishops afterwards, at Chalcedon, pleaded that their signatures had been tc: obtained by constraint. Constraint! cried the Eutychians. What a plea for bishops to put forward! Is the spirit of the martyrs so utterly extinct among you? Or are we to suppose that the martyrs might have done what their persecutors demanded, and afterwards pleaded that they had acted under constraint? Nay, was the reply: if we had fallen into the hands of heathen we should have borne anything they could inflict rather than yield. But the case was different when we were ordered by a bishop. A bishop is a father; and a son must obey a father, even though he himself disapprove of the command.

That this meeting, which Leo of Rome justly stigmatized as Latrocinium,' is not venerated in the East as one of the great Councils of the Church, is mainly due to the death of the emperor and a change of politics at the Court of Constantinople; and the violence and unfairness rather exceeded in degree than differed in kind from what was exhibited in other Councils more fortunate in their repute. As I have mentioned the acclamations of the bishops at this Council, I ought to tell you that there is a difference between the interruptions permitted by the parliamentary decorum of our time and what was considered permissible in the early Roman Empire. In our time, interruptions at a public meeting are usually inarticulate, clapping of hands, stamping of feet, and so forth. Parliamentary order does not permit a speaker, not in possession of the chair, to go beyond a cry of 'oh, oh," 'hear, hear,' order, order,' or 'question;' but in the Roman Senate it was common for the interrupter to shout out a short sentence, which was duly taken down by the reporters, and regularly entered on the Acts of the Senate. Sometimes a cry raised in this manner was taken up by the whole assembly, which repeated it perhaps several times, and, I believe, in a kind of chant; and then the reporters took carefully down how many times the cry was repeated. If time permitted, I could give you many curious illustrations of this practice,*

*The Augustan History is full of examples extracted from the official Acts of the Senate: see, for instance, the acclamations at the death of

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XVII.]

ACCLAMATIONS AT COUNCILS.

317

which certainly did not tend to the orderliness of proceedings; but the acclamations of the assembly came to be looked on as an essential way of expressing the assent of the whole meeting to what was done. In conformity with this practice, the proceedings of all the early Councils whose doings are recorded in detail end with acclamations; and the practice was kept up to the latest of them: the Council of Trent, for instance, ends with acclamations, led by the presiding Cardinal, and responded to by the Fathers, in the way of versicle and response, in such manner as could not have worked if the Fathers had not been drilled beforehand or given in print or writing what they were to acclaim. But such acclamations, however harmless at the end of the proceedings, must have been very disturbing in the middle, since it could not be agreeable to a speaker to be interrupted by shouts of 'anathema to the heretic,' 'burn him alive,' 'cut him in two.' At Chalcedon, where the proceedings were comparatively orderly, there were occasional scenes of great uproar. Thus, when the Church historian, Theodoret, whose sympathies had been with Nestorius, took his place, the Acts of the Council record that:-The most reverend the bishops of the East shouted out: "He is worthy." The most reverend the bishops of Egypt shouted out: "Don't call him bishop; he is no bishop; turn out the fighter against God; turn out the Jew." The most reverend the bishops of the East shouted out: "The orthodox for the Synod; turn out the rebels; turn out the murderers." The most reverend the bishops of Egypt: "Turn out the enemy of God; turn out the defamer of Christ."" It became necessary for the Imperial Commissioners to suppress the clamour.

Commodus, and those on the election of Alexander Severus, which fill whole chapters in the lives by Ælius Lampridius. When Tacitus pleaded his age as unfitting him for the Empire, the Senate acclaimed :-'Et Trajanus senex ad imperium venit' (dixerunt decies). After acclaiming several similar sentences each ten times, then :-'Imperatorem te non militem facimus' (dixerunt vicies); Severus dixit caput imperare non pedes' (dixerunt tricies), &c. At the election of Claudius II. some of the acclamations were repeated sixty times. Another interesting specimen is to be found in the official acts of the election of Eraclius as St. Augustine's successor, one of the acclamations being repeated twenty-five times, another twenty-eight times.

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