William Bright

“ They evidently regarded him as first in dignity among all bishops, but not as master or ruler of all; they "admire him for his far-reaching solicitude as to the interests of religion." "It is your habit, great as you are, to approve yourself in regard to all things, and to take a personal interest in the defence of the churches."
Nestorius, though sent away from Ephesus, had been allowed to live at his old home near Antioch. Celestine objected strongly to this, and thought that Nestorius ought to be placed where he could have no opportunity of spreading his opinions. ”

“ The charges were not to be theological: to attack Athanasius's teaching would be to declare against the Nicene doctrine, and this was a step on which Eusebius could not venture. He began by writing to Athanasius in behalf of Arius, and urging that, as a man whose opinions had been seriously misrepresented, he ought in justice to be received to church communion. Athanasius's answer shews the ground on which he took his stand. "It cannot be right to admit persons to communion who invented a heresy contrary to the truth, and were anathematized by the oecumenical council." ”

“ The identity was undeniable. He drew from behind the cloak first one hand, and then, after a pause, the other; and remarked with triumphant irony, "I suppose no one thinks that God has given to any man more hands than two." ”

“ Then Cyril added that the two natures spoken of in the formulary, were indeed separate in mental conception, i.e. considered apart from Christ, but that "after their union" in Christ "the nature of the Son was but one, as belonging to one, but to One as made man and incarnate." Again, "The nature of the Word is confessedly one, but has become incarnate," for "the Word took the form of a servant," and "in this sense only could a diversity of natures be recognized, for Godhead and Manhood are not the same in natural quality." ”

“ Athanasius, regarding the proceedings of the council of Tyre as already vitiated (Apol. 82) , resolved, without waiting for the judgment of such an assembly, "to make a bold and dangerous experiment, whether the throne was inaccessible to the voice of truth." Attended by five of his suffragans, he took the first vessel for Constantinople, and suddenly presented himself in the middle of the road when the emperor was riding into the city. Constantine, on learning who he was, and what was his errand, tried to pass him by in silence; but Athanasius firmly stood his ground. ”

“ Paul presented to Cyril a confession of faith as exhibiting the mind of John of Antioch (Ep. p. 103) ; it had been originally written at Ephesus by Theodoret (Tillem. xiv. 531) . "We confess," so ran this formulary, "our Lord Jesus Christ, the Only-begotten Son of God, to be perfect God and perfect Man, of a reasonable soul and a body, before the ages begotten of the Father according to Godhead, but in the last days Himself the self-same, for us and for our salvation, born of the Virgin Mary according to Manhood ”

“ The council's resolutions were expressed by Celestine in letters to Cyril and to Nestorius. The former (Ep. 11) commends Cyril's zeal in a cause which is, in truth, that of "Christ our God"; and concludes by saying that unless Nestorius should, within ten days, condemn his own wicked doctrines by a written profession of the same faith, as to "the birth of Christ our God," which is held by the Roman, by the Alexandrian, by the entire church, provision must be made for the see of Constantinople as if vacant, and Nestorius must be treated as one "separate from our body." ”

“ The cause of orthodoxy could never be aided by its being associated with, to say the least, the appearance of unfairness or impatience. But Cyril and his suffragans were probably not at all desirous of John's presence, for they knew he would be hostile to the Cyrilline articles: they encouraged the idea that he was purposely loitering from reluctance to join in measures against Nestorius (an idea which appears to have been unfounded, Evagr. i. 3) , and took advantage of the fact that other bishops were weary of waiting, the rather that illness, and even death, had occurred among them. ”

“ Its promulgator held the great see of the Eastern capital, involving a central position and strong court influence, and was no mere amiable dreamer or scholastic pedant, whose fancies might die away if left to themselves. He has in modern times been spoken of as "the blameless Nestorius": he was in his own times spoken of as "the incendiary" on account of a zeal against other forms of heresy which impelled him to take strong measures against opponents of his own. This was the enemy against whom Cyril did battle for the doctrine of a real Incarnation and a really Divine Christ. ”

“ If it was true, Cyril argued, that Jesus Christ was God, it was by consequence not less true that His mother was "Theotokos." If she was not rightly so called, her Son was a human individual external to the divine nature, and not in a true sense Emmanuel. This letter cites at length the Nicene Creed in its original form, ignoring the alterations made by the council of Constantinople, and insisting that the creed identified Jesus Christ with the Divine Co-essential Son. Nestorius was much displeased at the reception given to this letter by some official persons at Constantinople. ”

“ Nestorius met the denunciations of the Alexandrian synod by enlisting several Eastern bishops in his cause, including John of Antioch, and Theodoret, who accused Cyril of Apollinarianism; by preaching in an orthodox strain to his own people, and by framing 12 anathemas of his own, some of which betrayed confusion of thought, while some tended directly to confirm the charges against his teaching—e.g. he would not allow Emmanuel to be called Very God. Theodoret, whose views on the subject were not as yet clear or consistent, composed a reply to Cyril. ”

“ About the end of Apr. 429, when the controversial sermons of Nestorius—exhibiting no little confusion of thought, but clearly indicating a disbelief in what is theologically termed the Personal Union—had reached Egyptian monks, Cyril wrote to all who within his jurisdiction were "practising the solitary life," a long letter, upholding the term "Theotokos" in its true sense, as not meaning "mother of the Godhead," but mother, as regarded the manhood, of Him Who, being in the form of God, assumed the form of a servant, and, being the Lord of Glory, condescended to suffer the death of the cross. ”

“ According to this idea of an union without confusion, we confess the Holy Virgin to be Theotokos, because God the Word was incarnate and made Man, and from His very conception united to Himself the temple assumed from her." The formulary, although it dwelt more than Cyril had been wont to do on the double aspect of the Incarnation, was accepted by Cyril as representing Paul's own faith, and he placed a corresponding statement in the hands of Paul. ”

“ In another letter he gave, to a priest named Eulogius, a similar account of the phrase, and obviously viewed it as guarding the truth of the Personal Union (Ep. p. 133) . In another, addressed to a bishop named Valerian (and remarkable for the emphasis with which the Divinity of Christ is exhibited as bearing on His Atonement) , the word "nature," in this connexion, is evidently used as synonymous with "person" or hypostasis; and as if specially anxious to exclude all possible misconception, he wrote: "He, being by nature God, became flesh, that is, perfect man. ”

“ A Cilician bishop, Athanasius of Anazarbus, wrote to Alexander, openly declaring that Christ was "one of the hundred sheep"; George, an Alexandrian presbyter, then staying at Antioch, had the boldness to write to his bishop to the effect that the Son once "was not," just as Isaiah "was not," before he was born to Amoz (Athan. de Syn. 17) , for which he was deposed by Alexander from the priesthood. Arius now returned into Palestine, and three bishops of that country, one of whom was Eusebius of Caesarea, permitted him to hold religious assemblies within their dioceses. ”

“ He dwells repeatedly on the parable of the Talents, reminds Dracontius of solemn obligations, and warns him against imagining the monastic life to be the one sphere of Christian self-denial. [8] The calm contemplation of fast-approaching trials, which would make a severe demand on Christian men's endurance, shews a "discernment" of the "signs" of 354‒5 in Athanasius.
For, in the spring of 355, he would hear of the success of Constantius in terrorizing the great majority of a large council at Milan, which had been summoned at the urgent desire of Liberius. ”