When there had been read in the holy synod what had been done touching the deposition of the irreligious Pelagians and Celestinians, of Celestius, Pelagius, Julianus, Præsidius, Florus, Marcellinus, and Orontius, and those inclined to like errors, we also deemed it right that the determinations of your holiness concerning them should stand strong and firm. And we all were of the same mind, holding them deposed.
(d) Council of Ephesus, A. D. 431, Canons, Bruns, I, 24.
The text may be found also in Hefele, § 141.
Whereas it is needful that they who were detained from the holy synod and remained in their own district or city for any reason, ecclesiastical or personal, should not be ignorant of the matters which were decreed by the synod; we therefore notify your holiness and charity that——
I. If any metropolitan of a province, forsaking the holy and ecumenical synod, has joined the assembly of apostasy [the council under John of Antioch], or shall join the same hereafter; or if he has adopted, or shall adopt, the doctrines [pg 509] of Celestius,[185] he has no power in any way to do anything in opposition to the bishops of the province because he is already cast forth by the synod from all ecclesiastical communion, and is without authority; but he shall be subjected to the same bishops of the province and to the neighboring bishops who hold the orthodox doctrines, to be degraded completely from his episcopal rank.
II. If any provincial bishops were not present at the holy synod, and have joined or attempted to join the apostasy; or if, after subscribing to the deposition of Nestorius, they went back to the assembly of apostasy, these, according to the decree of the holy synod, are to be deposed completely from the priesthood and degraded from their rank.
(e) Council of Ephesus, A. D. 431, Manifesto of John of Antioch and his council against Cyril and his council. Mansi, IV, 1271.
The holy synod assembled in Ephesus, by the grace of God and at the command of the pious emperors, declares: We should indeed have wished to be able to hold a synod in peace, according to the canons of the holy Fathers and the letters of our most pious and Christ-loving emperors; but because you held a separate assembly from a heretical, insolent, and obstinate disposition, although, according to the letters of our most pious emperors, we were in the neighborhood, and because you have filled both the city and the holy synod with every sort of confusion, in order to prevent the examination of points agreeing with the Apollinarian, Arian, and Eunomian heresies and impieties, and have not waited for the arrival of the most religious bishops summoned from all regions by our pious emperors, and when the most magnificent Count Candidianus warned you and admonished you in writing and verbally that you should not hear such a matter, but await [pg 510] the common judgment of all the most holy bishops; therefore know thou, O Cyril, bishop of Alexandria, and thou, O Memnon, bishop of this city, that ye are dismissed and deposed from all sacerdotal functions as the originators and leaders of all this disorder and lawlessness, and those who have violated the canons of the Fathers and the imperial decrees. And all ye others who seditiously and wickedly, and contrary to all ecclesiastical sanctions and the royal decrees, gave your consent are excommunicated until you acknowledge your fault and reform and accept anew the faith set forth by the holy Fathers at Nicæa, adding to it nothing foreign or different, and until ye anathematize the heretical propositions of Cyril, which are plainly repugnant to evangelical and apostolic doctrine, and in all things comply with the letters of our most pious and Christ-loving emperors, who require a peaceful and accurate consideration of the dogma.
(f) Creed of Antioch A. D. 433. Hahn, § 170.
This creed was probably composed by Theodoret of Cyrus, and was sent by Count Johannes to the Emperor Theodosius in 431 as expressing the teaching of the Antiochian party. The bitterest period of the Nestorian controversy was after the council which is commonly regarded as having settled it. The Antiochians and the Alexandrians attacked each other vigorously. At last, in 433, John, bishop of Antioch, sent the creed given below to Cyril of Alexandria, who signed it. The creed expresses accurately the position of Nestorius. In this way a union was patched up between the contending parties. But the irreconcilable Nestorians left the Church permanently. This creed in the form in which it had been presented to the Emperor was at the beginning and the end worded somewhat differently, cf. Hahn, loc. cit., note.