Cambridge Ancient Hi.. - Index of

the councils of ephesus i and ii 813
This document is also significant as the first in a series of theological compromises
in the debates of the next two centuries. While the agreement was
a more successful compromise than most of its kind, the peace effected
after the union was none the less uneasy, not least because of the efforts of
Cyril and his followers to secure additionally the condemnation of the
(deceased) Antiochene theologians, Diodore of Tarsus and Theodore of
Mopsuestia. Although Proclus, patriarch of Constantinople (434–46), was
unwilling to condone this course of action in his christological work, the
Tome to the Armenians, Cyril’s cause was taken up by Dioscorus, his successor
as patriarch of Alexandria in 444, who was both an ardent Cyrillian and
a declared opponent of the Antiochene school. On the other side,
Theodoret of Cyrrhus and Ibas of Edessa defended the Antiochene teachers
strenuously. In the attempts of the Cyrillians here to widen Nestorius’
condemnation to include other Antiochenes, we can see the beginnings of
the so-called Three Chapters controversy, which was to be fully articulated
in the reign of Justinian.
Among the influential monastic body in Constantinople, the archimandrite
Eutyches had acquired considerable support for his christological
views. While these are not known to us with certainty, 5 as represented by his
opponents, such as Theodoret of Cyrrhus, Eutyches implied that Christ was
not consubstantial with human beings. Like the emperor, Dioscorus also
took the part of the archimandrite, who shared his negative views of the protagonists
of the Antiochene school. Eutyches nevertheless met with stiff
opposition from Flavian, who had become patriarch of Constantinople in
446, and the home synod of the capital city, who condemned him for his
views. The archimandrite’s appeal to Leo, bishop of Rome, was backed up
by the emperor, who determined to hold another council at Ephesus on 1
August 449 to restore ecclesiastical order. Indeed, the emperor played a
significant role in the preparations for this council, since he deputed not
Flavian but Dioscorus to convene it, and stipulated the number and nature
of its participants. Furthermore, he banned Theodoret from the proceedings.
The papal legates who travelled to Ephesus carried a letter from Leo to
Flavian, the Tome of Leo, in which the bishop of Rome declared his christological
position, affirming Christ to be one single person, but with two
natures, divine and human, each of which interacts with the other. The Tome
was to become both one of the canons of two-nature christology and an
object of hatred by adherents of the one-nature christology. The document
was not read, however, during the aggressive and riotous proceedings of the
council, presided over by the patriarch of Alexandria, at which Eutyches was
rehabilitated, Flavian, Theodoret and Ibas deposed, and Cyril’s Twelve
Chapters accepted. Amid the triumph for Dioscorus personally and for
5 See Wickham (1982b) 562.
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