The Search for the Restoration of Communion, A.D. 431–433
When the 3rd Œcumenical Council closed with the banishment of Nestorius and the anathematizing of his doctrines, Alexandria, Rome, Constantinople and all the bishops of the Roman world were in communion and at peace, with the exception of those of the diocese of Oriens. John of Antioch and the Antiochene bishops returned to their sees in high dudgeon, unwilling to accept the Council and its decrees or the elevation of Maximian to the see of Constantinople. They were still convinced that Cyril was a closet Apollinarian, still resented his twelve anathemas and were determined to have his writings against Nestorius withdrawn, claiming that Cyril was putting them forward as a new creed to replace the Nicene Creed. On his part, Cyril, back in Alexandria, still resented the treatment John and the Antiochene bishops had meted out to him at Ephesus, and their attempt to excommunicate him.
Maximian moved quickly against the few supporters of Nestorius in his own jurisdiction, deposing four bishops. One was Dorotheus of Marcianopolis, who had preached the notorious sermon against the Theotokos. This became another grievance of the Antiochene bishops.
Cyril, well aware that the Emperor Theodosius would not tolerate schism in the church, wrote to Acacius, bishop of Berœa, early in 432. Acacius was the most eminent and respected of the Antiochene theologians, by now a very old man, and it was well worth Cyril’s while to win his support. Acacius, although sympathetic, unfortunately would not commit himself.
In March 432, Celestine wrote to the emperor exhorting him to enforce the decrees of the Council of Ephesus to the fullest extent, but at the same time to restore the Antiochene bishops to communion with the rest of the Church. Theodosius consulted with Maximinian and the permanent synod of Constantinople, who assured him that the only basis on which the breach could be healed was for John of Antioch to anathematize the teachings of Nestorius and approve his deposition in writing; in return for which Cyril would forget the insulting treatment he had received at Ephesus. Accordingly, the emperor sent the tribune Aristolaus with a letter to this effect to John, with the mission of negotiating a solution to the schism.
John consulted with Acacius of Berœa, and the two drafted a proposal to Cyril in the name of the Antiochene bishops, sending it through Aristolaus. It was very short and amounted to a rebuff. John and Acacius stated that they abided by the faith expressed in the Nicene Creed and the letter of St Athanasius the Great to Epictetus, bishop of Corinth. ‘We reject all the documents introduced recently either through letters or through pamphlets …’ (Appendix 2, ibid., II, p. 183) St Athanasius’s letter was his refutation of Apollinarianism, so a tacit rebuke to Cyril. And while they showed themselves willing to set aside Nestorius’s writings, they wished also to set aside Cyril’s letters against Nestorius, in particular his twelve anathemas. They nowhere mentioned Nestorius by name, or even alluded to him.
When Aristolaus brought the Antiochene proposal, Cyril was indignant but controlled his anger. Instead, he wrote a long but conciliatory and carefully worded letter to Acacius of Berœa, recognising that Acacius was seeking peace. He expressed his debt to Aristolaus, ‘because he is cooperative with me in all things and by his competent plans has taken away what grieved me.’ (Letter 33, ibid., I, p. 135) Aristolaus may well have counselled him in how best to frame the letter.
Cyril touched on all the important points, emphasising the emperor’s desire for peace, reaffirming the Nicene Creed, denouncing Apollinarianism and Arianism. He assured Acacius that his twelve anathemas were directed solely against Nestorius’s statements, tacitly denying any intention of attacking Diodore of Tarsus or Theodore of Mopsuestia, whose memories were revered by the Antiochene bishops. And he pleaded for a fair hearing: ‘When communion has been restored and peace made among the churches, when it shall be permitted us to write in answer without being suspected … then we also will be satisfied very easily. Some of those things which were written by us are not at all properly understood by some, and these will be clarified.’ (Ibid., I, p. 133) But he did not back down on his condemnation of Nestorius, nor withdraw his writings against him. He continued to insist that John of Antioch anathematize Nestorius and his teachings.
Celestine of Rome died on 27 July 432. He is recognised as a saint by the Church, his feast day on 8 April. He was succeeded by Sixtus, consecrated on Sunday, 31 July. Soon after, Sixtus wrote to Cyril, confirming his recognition of the Council of Ephesus, stating that the church of Rome was not in communion with John or the Antiochene bishops, but expressing the wish that they be welcomed back to communion if they renounced Nestorius and his teachings.
Meanwhile, the Antiochene bishops, under pressure from the Emperor Theodosius as well as Alexandria and Rome, were slowly coming around. John of Antioch had been prepared to abandon Nestorius at Ephesus. Now Acacius of Berœa, mollified by Cyril’s conciliatory letter, gave his support to reconciliation. Then Rabbula, bishop of Edessa in Syria, as elderly and as eminent as Acacius, gave his support as well. In December 432, John sent Paul, bishop of Emesa in Phœnicia (now Homs in Syria), accompanied by Aristolaus, to Alexandria with a new proposal. John began by excusing his actions at Ephesus as due to shock at Cyril’s Third Letter to Nestorius and his anathemas: ‘Our disagreement had as its cause the sending of those documents and it would be an advantage if it had not happened. It is necessary that your reverence believe me how much it alienated us, so that we did not think that they were yours in the beginning.’ But Cyril’s letter to Acacius gave him hope of reconciliation, especially since Cyril agreed that St Athanasius’s letter to Epictetus was enough to settle the controversy. But John still wanted Cyril to withdraw his writings: ‘… let the things, which were the cause of the difference which arose between us, hereafter cease.’ (Appendix 3, Ibid., II, pp. 185-86)
John commended Paul of Emesa to Cyril, asking him to trust Paul as if he were John himself in resolving all differences: ‘He is a man always esteemed among ecclesiastics, one who had well known how to conduct affairs even nobly, and who possesses reverence toward God. Using these talents, he has often brought many things together for the common good, leading the way under God, and even more he brings them together through the innate earnestness which is present in him.’ (Ibid., II, p. 187)
Cyril found John’s new proposal as unacceptable as the previous one, but John’s opinion of Paul’s sagacity was vindicated. Paul undertook to anathematize Nestorius’s teachings and agree to his deposition on behalf of the Antiochene bishops. The only additional thing that Cyril asked for was an orthodox statement of faith by the Antiochene bishops. Cyril accepted him back into communion and Paul preached in the Great Church of Alexandria on Sunday, 25 December 432, acknowledging the blessed Virgin Mary as Theotokos. The feast of the Nativity of Christ was celebrated at the Liturgy, the first time that the Church commemorated it on the 25th of December.
Paul and Aristolaus now went back to Antioch, where John gave in at last. Paul returned to Alexandria early in 433 with the Antiochene confession of faith for which Cyril had asked, basically what the Antiochene delegates had drafted at the Chalcedon colloquy. It stated that they added nothing to the Nicene Creed, confessed the Virgin Mary as Theotokos, and the Word of God incarnate as perfect man and perfect God, consubstantial with us in his humanity, consubstantial with the Father is his divinity, ‘for a union was made of the two natures.’
The only part that gave Cyril pause was the last paragraph, a gingerly response to his 4th Anathema: ‘And we know that theologians regard some of the evangelical and apostolic sayings regarding the Lord as common, that is, as pertaining to one person [ὡς ἐφ’ ἑνὸς προσώπου], and that theologians divide others of the sayings as pertaining to two natures [ὡς ἐπὶ δύο φύσεων] and refer those proper to God to the divinity of Christ, but the lowly ones to his humanity.’ (Letter 38, ibid., I. pp. 145-146; Migne PG 77, col. 177)
This passage would later return to haunt Cyril, but he took little notice of it at the time, merely commenting that, although it was not wrong, ‘such statements are not mine, but have been uttered by him [John of Antioch].’ (Letter 40, ibid., I. p. 166)
Cyril now wrote his famous letter ‘Let the heavens be glad and the earth rejoice,’ better known under its Latin title Laetentur caeli, and as the Formula of Reunion. (Cyril to John of Antioch, Epistle 39, ibid., I. pp. 147-152)
He first thanks the emperors Theodosius and Valentinian: ‘They have taken special care of the holy churches, so that they may forever have their glory spread abroad and show forth their reign as most noble,’ then continues: ‘But we have been fully assured, now especially, that the disagreement of our churches happened completely superfluously and inopportunely. My lord, the most reverend bishop, Paul, brought forward a document containing an irreprehensible confession of faith and verified that this was composed by your holiness [John of Antioch] and by the most God-loving bishops there.’ And he quotes the confession in full, including the problematic final paragraph.
‘Having read these holy words of yours and finding that we thought thus also, for there is ‘one Lord, one faith, one baptism,’ [Eph. 4.5] we glorified God, the Savior of all, congratulating one another because the churches with us and through you have the faith corresponding to the divinely inspired Scriptures and the tradition of our holy Fathers.’
Cyril then rebuts the accusations of Apollinarism made against him and goes on to reiterate his basic teaching: ‘For the Lord Jesus Christ is one, even if the difference of the natures, from which we state that the ineffable union has been made is not ignored … Everyone of us confesses that the Word of God is, moreover, impassible, even though he himself is seen assigning to himself the sufferings that happened to his own body.’
He follows the doctrines of the holy Fathers, especially St Athanasius, not departing from them in any way. ‘And in no manner do we permit the defined faith to be shaken by anyone, or the creed of the faith, defined by our holy Fathers who assembled at Nicaea in critical times.’
Cyril announced the restoration of communion with the bishops of Oriens from the pulpit of the Great Church in Alexandria on Sunday, 23 April 433.
He later expressed his admiration for Paul of Emesa and the role he had played in effecting the reunion: ‘I was gladdened when I met with our most pious and most God-loving brother and fellow bishop, Paul, and I marveled at the complete courtesy of the man, and I was hurt in no small measure, when he departed from Alexandria.’ (Cyril to John of Antioch, Letter 89, ibid., II. p. 132)
Nestorius, back in his monastery in Antioch, continued to defend his teachings and began a pamphlet war. Disgusted, Theodosius banished him to the Oasis in Egypt, where he ended his days a few decades later, still writing in his defence but without anyone paying much attention.
A Peace That Was No More Than a Truce
With the reunion of 433, Rome, Alexandria, Antioch, Jerusalem and Constantinople were once again all in communion: it appeared that the Council of Ephesus had succeeded and that the Church was at peace. The appearance was illusory, however. Nestorius continued to have supporters who rejected the council. The Antiochene bishops in John’s archdiocese who had signed the Formula of Reunion claimed to support the council but many, in particular Theodoret of Cyrrhus, continued to revere the legacy of Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia. And there was even disquiet among the supporters of Cyril, some of whom felt that he had gone too far in the Formula of Reunion to accommodate the Antiochenes, and had opened the door to Nestorianism. The divisions in the Church revealed by the Council of Ephesus went very deep and would not finally be resolved for another century and more, even then leaving a schism unhealed to this day.
Cyril himself died in the year 444 and so took no part in the subsequent councils. By that time, he was a towering figure in the Church: for many, he was orthodoxy personified, his authority unquestioned. He has been recognised as one of the greatest theologians of the Church and as a saint, his feasts on 2 May and, shared with St Athanasius, on 18 January. Cyril’s role in the period 433 to 444 was limited but would nonetheless be significant for later councils.
In April 433, Maximian, bishop of Constantinople, died, and was succeeded by Proclus, who had opposed Nestorius from the beginning of the controversy and was a firm supporter of Cyril. Proclus at first wished to have Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia anathematized, and was supported by Cyril, but they were dissuaded by the emperor and John of Antioch—why stir up new trouble when wounds were scarcely healed?
Cyril, however, was forced to reply to some of Nestorius’s supporters, who treated the final paragraph of the Antiochene confession of faith, quoted by Cyril in the Formula of Reunion, as if it were Cyril’s own words, and as if it committed him to the teaching of a Christ in two natures, implying Nestorianism. It was this that had disquieted some of his own followers. He was also being attacked as an Apollinarian heretic by Ibas, who in 435 had succeeded Rabbula as bishop of Edessa and had set himself up as the champion of the Antiochene christology.
The Nestorian controversy had begun with a disagreement over the Virgin Mary’s title of Theotokos, but this was now settled. From now on the debate would focus narrowly on the term φύσις (nature), and whether Christ was ‘in one nature’ or ‘in two natures.’ What made the debate confusing was that Cyril used the term in a slightly different way than the Antiochene theologians, with their insistence on precise definitions. Cyril, who had no interest in precise definitions as long as the basic teaching was maintained, used it indifferently as a synonym of οὐσία (essence) and also of ὑπόστασις (actually existing entity, hypostasis). The Antiochene theologians used it only in the former sense.
The Antiochene theologians were committed to the position that Christ was ‘in two natures,’ human and divine. They went on to argue that, if the human nature did not have an hypostasis, Christ could not be truly human, since a nature, to be an actually existing thing, must have an hypostasis. Therefore Christ must be in two hypostases, human and divine, and therefore the theology of Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of Mopsuestia could be defended—and of course also that of Nestorius.
Soon after the reconciliation in 433, Cyril wrote a long letter to his friend Acacius, Bishop of Melitene (not to be confused with Acacius of Berœa), to explain his position on the two natures, of course expecting Acacius to circulate the letter more widely. For Cyril, it was obvious that there was both a human nature and a divine nature in Christ, the two joined inseparably in a way that could not be put into words, neither one changing the other or being confused with it. The puzzle for him was why anyone would want to talk about them. Christ is one. Whether the action can be thought of as appropriate to his humanity or to his divinity, it is being performed by the one Christ, and there is nothing further to be said about it. But how to express this? Cyril’s solution was: ‘We say that the two natures were united [δύο μὲν φύσεις ἡνῶσθαί φαμεν, using it as a synonym of οὐσία], from which there is one and only Son and Lord, Jesus Christ, as we accept in our thoughts; but after the union, since the distinction into two is now done away with, we believe that there is one nature of the Son [μίαν εἶναι πιστεύομεν τὴν τοῦ Υἱοῦ φύσιν, using it as a synonym of ὑπόστασις], as one however, one who became man and was made flesh.’ (Letter 40, para. 14; ibid., I. p. 160, amended; Migne PG 77, cols. 192-193)
He wrote also to another supporter, Succensus, bishop of Diocæsarea in Isauria, in the same terms: ‘Therefore, whenever we have these thoughts [of two natures coming together in the Incarnation] in no way do we harm the joining into a unity by saying that he was of two natures, but after the union we do not separate the natures from one another, nor do we cut the one and indivisible Son into two sons, but we say that there is one Son, and as the holy Fathers have said, that there is one nature of the Word of God made flesh [μίαν φύσιν τοῦ Θεοῦ Λόγου σεσαρκωμένην].’ (Letter 45, para. 6; ibid., I. p. 193, amended; Migne PG 77, col. 232) This, as far as we know, was the first time that he used this expression, which however would become a watchword of the Cyrillians.
These two letters—and this formula for the union, ‘one nature of the Word of God made flesh’—would play a role in subsequent debates. They would still be debated after Cyril’s death, but that belongs to the story of the 4th and 5th Œcumenical Councils.