least his request, was readily granted; he was conducted with honour from Ephesus to his old monastery of Antioch; and after a short pause, his successors, Maximian and Proclus, were acknowledged as the lawful bishops of Constantinople. But in the silence of his cell, the degraded patriarch could no longer resume the innocence and security of a private monk. The past he regretted, he was discontented with the present, and the future he had reason to dread: the Oriental bishops successively disengaged their cause from his unpopular name, and each day decreased the number of the schismatics who revered Nestorius as the confessor of the faith. After a residence at Antioch of four years, the hand of Theodosius subscribed an edict,* which ranked him with Simon the magician, proscribed his opinions and followers, condemned his writing to the flames, and banished his person first to Petra in Arabia, and at length to Oasis, one of the islands of the Libyan desert.† Secluded from the church Bibliot. Oriental. tom. iii, p. 299-302. [Nestorius was deposed by an imperial edict; and at his own humble request, was permitted to return to his monastery at Antioch.-GERMAN ED.] [The circumstantial narrative of Neander (4. 166-170) gives a very different aspect to the fall of Nestorius. Wearied and harassed by the restless hostility of Cyril, he wrote to the imperial chamberlain, Scholasticus, saying, that if "the maintenance of the true faith could be secured, he would gladly return to his cloister and its blessed tranquillity." Obeying his sister Pulcheria and disturbed by the insinuations of Cyril's bribed advocates, the weak Theodosius availed himself of this letter, and through the prætorian prefect informed Nestorius, but without any manifestation of unfriendly feeling, that "the necessary orders had been given for his returning, in the most convenient and desirable manner, to his cloister." In reply to this, the patriarch resigned his office, again commending to the emperor "the care of maintaining pure doctrine." There are no proofs of his having engaged in any intrigues after his retirement; but he had many friends in Constantinople; and after the death of his successor Maximianus the populace clamoured for his restoration. This induced his enemies to obtain an order for his removal to a greater distance, and his subsequent persecutions.-ED.] * See the imperial letters in the Acts of the synod of Ephesus. (Concil. tom. iii, p. 1730—1735.) The odious name of Simonians, which was affixed to the disciples of this τερατώδους διδασκαλίας, was designed ὡς ἂν ἀνείδεσι προβληθέντες αἰώνιον ὑπομένοιεν τιμωρίαν τῶν ἁμαρτημάτων, καὶ μήτε ζῶντας τιμωρίας, μήτε θανόντας ἀτιμίας ἑκτὸς ὑπάρχειν. Yet these were Christians who differed only in names and in shadows. The metaphor of islands is applied by the grave civilians (Pandect. 1. 48, tit. 22, leg. 7,) to those happy spots which are discriminated by VOL. V. and from the world, the exile was still pursued by the rage of bigotry and war. A wandering tribe of the Blemmyes of Nubians invaded his solitary prison; in their retreat they dismissed a crowd of useless captives; but no sooner had Nestorius reached the banks of the Nile, than he would gladly have escaped from a Roman and orthodox city to the milder servitude of the savages. His flight was punished as a new crime: the soul of the patriarch inspired the civil and ecclesiastical powers of Egypt; the magistrates, the soldiers, the monks, devoutly tortured the enemy of Christ and St. Cyril; and, as far as the confines of Ethiopia, the heretic was alternately dragged and recalled, till his aged body was broken by the hardships and accidents of these reiterated journeys. Yet his mind was still independent and erect; the president of Thebais was awed by his pastoral letters; he survived the Catholic tyrant of Alexandria, and, after sixteen years' banishment, the synod of Chalcedon would perhaps have restored him to the honours, or at least to the communion, of the church. The death of Nestorius prevented his obedience to their welcome summons ;* and water and verdure from the Libyan sands. Three of these under the common name of Oasis, or Alvahat-1. The temple of Jupiter Ammon. 2. The middle Oasis, three days' journey to the west of Lycopolis. 3. The southern, where Nestorius was banished, in the first climate, and only three days' journey from the confines of Nubia. See a learned note of Michaelis (ad Descript. Egypt. Abulfedæ, p. 21--34). [The most sensible meaning, assigned to the word Oasis, derives it from Ouah, the plural of Wah, Arab. for a dwelling; so that it denotes an inhabited spot in the desert. Herodotus mentions but one, which he calls an "island of the blest." The three named by Gibbon, were known in the time of Strabo. Many more have since been discovered, which Browne, Burckhardt, Belzoni and other travellers have described. There is no satisfactory evidence that they were ever used as penal solitudes, prior to the building of Constantinople. The first on record who sent refractory opponents there is Constantius, and the emperor Julian is said to have imitated him. From that time, deportation to them was a punishment held to be second only to that of death. Justinian relaxed its severity into a "relegatio ad tempus." The Notitia Imperii proves that Roman garrisons were kept there. -ED.] *The invitation of Nestorius to the synod of Chalcedon, is related by Zacharias, bishop of Melitene (Evagrius, 1. 2, c. 2. Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii, p. 55) and the famous Xenaias or Philoxenus, bishop of Hierapolis (Asseman. Bibliot. Orient. tom. ii, p. 40, &c.); denied by Evagrius and Asseman, and stoutly maintained by La Croze. (Thesaur. Epistol. tom. iii, p. 181. &c.) The fact is not improbable; yet, it was the interest of the Monophysites to spread the nis disease might afford some colour to the scandalous report, that his tongue, the organ of blasphemy, had been eaten by the worms. He was buried in a city of Upper Egypt, known by the names of Chemmis, or Panopolis, or Akmim ;* but the immortal malice of the Jacobites has persevered for ages to cast stones against his sepulchre, and to propagate the foolish tradition, that it was never watered by the rain of heaven, which equally descends on the righteous and the ungodly.t Humanity may drop a tear on the fate of Nestorius; yet justice must observe, that he suffered the persecution which he had approved and inflicted.‡ The death of the Alexandrian primate, after a reign of thirty-two years, abandoned the Catholics to the intemperance of zeal, and the abuse of victory.§ The Monophysite invidious report; and Eutychius (tom. ii, p. 12,) affirms that Nestorius died after an exile of seven years, and consequently ten years before the synod of Chalcedon. *Consult D'Anville (Mémoire sur l'Egypte, p. 191), Pocock (Description of the East, vol. i, p. 76), Abulfeda (Descript. Egypt. p. 14), and his commentator Michaelis (Not. p. 78-83), and the Nubian Geographer (p. 42), who mentions, in the twelfth century, the ruins and the sugar-canes of Akmim. [The ancient accounts of this place have been supposed to refer to two different towns. (Cellarius, 2.823.) Chemmis was its original designation. New settlers under the Ptolemies, finding their Pan, or some deity like him, worshipped there, gave the place its Greek name. Diodorus Siculus (1. 18) says that both have the same meaning, and Dr Lepsius says that Chem was the Pan of the Egyptians, but doubts whether the place had its original name from this. (Letters from Egypt, p. 115, edit. Bohn.) Most writers mention it only as Panopolis, and the district around it was denominated Nomos Panopolitos. Strabo says, that, in his time, it was inhabited chiefly by linen-weavers and lapidaries. Akmim, or, according to Lepsius, Echmim, is the Arabian form given to its old name.--ED.] "The Eutychius (Annal. tom. ii, p. 12) and Gregory Bar-Hebræus, or Abulpharagius (Asseman. tom. ii, p. 316) represent the credulity of the tenth and thirteenth centuries. We are obliged to Evagrius (1. 1, c. 7.) for some extracts from the letters of Nestorius; but the lively picture of his sufferings is treated with insult by the hard and stupid fanatic. [In this sentiment Neander concurs. heart of Evagrius," he says (4. 182) "was so steeled by the power of dogmatic fanaticism, that he had no sense to perceive the composure and dignity of Nestorius; and could see nothing but pride and obstinacy, in the expressions of a noble spirit, unbowed to servility by all its misfortunes."-ED.] § Dixi Cyrillum dum viveret, auctoritate sua effecisse, ne Eutychianismus et Monophysitarum error in nervum erumperet: idque verum puto.. aliquo... honesto modo Taλivwdiar cecinerat. The learned but cautious Jablonski did not doctrine (one incarnate nature) was rigorously preached in the churches of Egypt and the monasteries of the East; the primitive creed of Apollinaris was protected by the sanctity of Cyril; and the name of Eutyches, his venerable friend, has been applied to the sect most adverse to the Syrian heresy of Nestorius. His rival Eutyches was the abbot, or archimandrite, or superior of three hundred monks; but the opinions of a simple and illiterate recluse might have expired in the cell where he had slept above seventy years, if the resentment or indiscretion of Flavian, the Byzantine pontiff, had not exposed the scandal to the eyes of the Christian world. His domestic synod was instantly convened, their proceedings were sullied with clamour and artifice, and the aged heretic was surprised into a seeming confession, that Christ had not derived his body from the substance of the Virgin Mary. From their partial decree, Eutyches appealed to a general council; and his cause was vigorously asserted by his godson Chrysaphius, the reigning eunuch of the palace, and his accomplice Dioscorus, who had succeeded to the throne, the creed, the talents, and the vices of the nephew of Theophilus. By the special summons of Theodosius, the second synod of Ephesus was judiciously composed of ten metropolitans and ten bishops from each of the six dioceses of the Eastern empire: some exceptions of favour or merit enlarged the number to one hundred and thirty-five; and the Syrian Barsumas, as the chief and representative of the monks, was invited to sit and vote with the successors of the apostles. But the despotism of the Alexandrian patriarch again oppressed the freedom of debate: the same spiritual and carnal weapons were again drawn from the arsenals of Egypt; the Asiatic veterans, a band of archers, served under the orders of Dioscorus; and the more formidable monks, whose minds were inaccessible to reason or mercy, besieged the doors of the cathedral. The general, and, as it should seem, the unconstrained voice of the fathers, always speak the whole truth. Cum Cyrillo lenius omnino egi, quam si tecum aut cum aliis rei hujus probe gnaris et æquis rerum æstimatoribus sermones privatos conferrem (Thesaur. Epistol. La Crozian, tom. i, p. 197, 198), an excellent key to his dissertations on the Nestorian Controversy! [This Cyril appears to have raised the controversy for the express purpose of obtaining the assistance of the court against the bishops who opposed him. In this he at first but too well suc accepted the faith and even the anathemas of Cyril; and the heresy of the two natures was formally condemned in the persons and writings of the most learned Orientals. "May those who divide Christ be divided with the sword, may they be hewn in pieces, may they be burnt alive!" were the charitable wishes of a Christian synod.* The innocence and sanctity of Eutyches were acknowledged without hesitation: but the prelates, more especially those of Thrace and Asia, were unwilling to depose their patriarch for the use or even the abuse of his lawful jurisdiction. They embraced the knees of Dioscorus, as he stood with a threatening aspect on the footstool of his throne, and conjured him to forgive the offences, and to respect the dignity, of his brother. "Do you mean to raise a sedition ?" exclaimed the relentless tyrant. "Where are the officers ? At these words a furious multitude of monks and soldiers, with staves, and swords, and chains, burst into the church; the trembling bishops hid themselves behind the altar, or under the benches, and as they were not inspired with the zeal of martyrdom, they successively subscribed a blank paper, which was afterwards filled with the condemnation of the Byzantine pontiff. Flavian was instantly delivered to the wild beasts of this spiritual amphitheatre: the monks were stimulated by the voice and example of Barsumas to avenge the injuries of Christ it is said that the patriarch of Alexandria reviled, and buffeted, and kicked, and trampled his brother of Constantinople it is certain, that the victim, before he could ceeded.-GERMAN ED.] * Ἡ ἁγία σύνοδος εἶπεν, ἆρον, καῦσον Εὐσέβιον, οὗτος ζῶν καῇ, οὗτος εἷς δύο γένηται, ὡς ἐμέρισε, μερισθῆ . εἴ τις λέγει δύο, ἀνάθεμα. At the request of Dioscorus, those who were not able to roar (Boñea), stretched out their hands. At Chalcedon, the Orientals disclaimed these exclamations; but the Egyptians more consistently declared ταῦτα καὶ τότε εἴπομεν καὶ νῦν λέγομεν. (Concil. tom. iv, p. 1012.) "EXɛyɛ de (Eusebius, bishop of Dorylæum) τὸν Φλαβιανόν τε δειλαίως ἀναιρεθῆναι πρὸς Διοσκόρου ὠθούμEVÓV TE Kai λaktišóμevov: and this testimony of Évagrius (1. 2, c. 2,) is amplified by the historian Zonaras, (tom. ii, 1. 13, p. 44,) who affirms that Dioscorus kicked like a wild ass. But the language of Liberatus (Brev. c. 12, in Concil. tom. vi, p. 438,) is more cautious; and the Acts of Chalcedon, which lavish the names of homicide, Cain, &c., do not stify so pointed a charge. The monk Barsumas is more particularly accused—ἔσφαξε τὸν μακάριον Φλαυιανόν· αὐτὸς ἔστηκε καὶ ἔλεγε, opážov. (Concil. tom. iv, p. 1423.) [Neander relates (4. 220) "the high-handed violence of Dioscorus," at the second council of Ephesus |