During this period of confusion the Church was troubled by a complicated controversy on the Incarnation. The protagonists in the debates were two ecclesiastics, Cyril and Nestorius, of whom, more or less by accident, the former was proclaimed a saint and the latter a heretic. Saint Cyril was patriarch of Alexandria from about 412 till his death in 444; Nestorius was patriarch of Constantinople. The question at issue was the relation of Christ’s divinity to His humanity. Were there two Persons, one human and one divine? This was the view held by Nestorius. If not, was there only one nature, or were there two natures in one person, a human nature and a divine nature? These questions roused, in the fifth century, an almost incredible degree of passion and fury. «A secret and incurable discord was cherished between those who were most apprehensive of confound-
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ing, and those who were most fearful of separating, the divinity and the humanity of Christ.»
Saint Cyril, the advocate of unity, was a man of fanatical zeal. He used his position as patriarch to incite pogroms of the very large Jewish colony in Alexandria. His chief claim to fame is the lynching of Hypatia, a distinguished lady who, in an age of bigotry, adhered to the Neoplatonic philosophy and devoted her talents to mathematics. She was «torn from her chariot, stripped naked, dragged to the church, and inhumanly butchered by the hands of Peter the Reader and a troop of savage and merciless fanatics: her flesh was scraped from her bones with sharp oyster-shells and her quivering limbs were delivered to the flames. The just progress of inquiry and punishment was stopped by seasonable gifts.» * After this, Alexandria was no longer troubled by philosophers.
Saint Cyril was pained to learn that Constantinople was being led astray by the teaching of its patriarch Nestorius, who maintained that there were two persons in Christ, one human and one divine. On this ground Nestorius objected to the new practice of calling the Virgin «Mother of God»; she was, he said, only the mother of the human Person, while the divine Person, who was God, had no mother. On this question the Church was divided: roughly speaking, bishops east of Suez favoured Nestorius, while those west of Suez favoured Saint Cyril. A council was summoned to meet at Ephesus in 431 to decide the question. The Western bishops arrived first, and proceeded to lock the doors against late-comers and decide in hot haste for Saint Cyril, who presided. «This episcopal tumult, at the distance of thirteen centuries, assumes the venerable
aspect of the Third Å’cumenical Council.» â€
As a result of this Council, Nestorius was condemned as a heretic. He did not recant, but was the founder of the Nestorian sect, which had a large following in Syria and throughout the East. Some centuries later, Nestorianism was so strong in China that it seemed to have a chance of becoming the established religion. Nestorians were found in India by the Spanish and Portuguese missionaries in the sixteenth century. The persecution of Nestorianism by the Catholic
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* Gibbon, op. cit., Chap. XLVII.
€ Ibid.
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government of Constantinople caused disaffection which helped the Mohammedans in their conquest of Syria.
The tongue of Nestorius, which by its eloquence had seduced so many, was eaten by worms—so at least we are assured.
Ephesus had learnt to substitute the Virgin for Artemis, but had still the same intemperate zeal for its goddess as in the time of Saint Paul. It was said that the Virgin was buried there. In 449, after the death of Saint Cyril, a synod at Ephesus tried to carry the triumph further, and thereby fell into the heresy opposite to that of Nestorius; this is called the Monophysite heresy, and maintains that Christ has only one nature. If Saint Cyril had still been alive, he would certainly have supported this view, and have become heretical. The Emperor supported the synod, but the Pope repudiated it. At last Pope Leo-the same Pope who turned Attila from attacking Rome—in the year of the battle of Chalons secured the summoning of an cecumenical Council at Chalcedon in 451, which condemned the Monophysites and finally decided the orthodox doctrine of the Incarnation. The Council of Ephesus had decided that there is only one Person of Christ, but the Council of Chalcedon decided that He exists in two natures, one human and one divine. The influence of the Pope was paramount in securing this decision.
The Monophysites, like the Nestorians, refused to submit. Egypt, almost to a man, adopted their heresy, which spread up the Nile and as far as Abyssinia. The heresy of Egypt, like the opposite heresy of Syria, facilitated the Arab conquest. The heresy of the Abyssinians was given by Mussolini as one of his reasons for conquering them.
During the sixth century, there were four men of great importance in the history of culture: Boethius, Justinian, Benedict, and Gregory the Great. They will be my chief concern in the remainder of this chapter and in the next.
The Gothic conquest of Italy did not put an end to Roman civilization. Under Theodoric, king of Italy and of the Goths, the civil administration of Italy was entirely Roman; Italy enjoyed peace and religious toleration (till near the end); the king was both wise and vigorous. He appointed consuls, preserved Roman law, and kept up the Senate: when in Rome, his first visit was to Senate house.
Though an Arian, Theodoric was on good terms with the Church until his last years. In 523, the Emperor Justin proscribed Arianism,
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and this annoyed Theodoric. He had reason for fear, since Italy was Catholic, and was led by theological sympathy to side with the Emperor. He believed, rightly or wrongly, that there was a plot involving men in his own government. This led him to imprison and execute his minister, the senator Boethius, whose Consolations of Philosophy was written while he was in prison.
Boethius is a singular figure. Throughout the Middle Ages he was read and admired, regarded always as a devout Christian, and treated almost as if he had been one of the Fathers. Yet his Consolations of Philosophy, written in 524 while he was awaiting execution, is purely Platonic; it does not prove that he was not a Christian, but it does show that pagan philosophy had a much stronger hold on him then Christian theology. Some theological works, especially one on the Trinity, which are attributed to him, are by many authorities considered to be spurious; but it was probably owing to them that the Middle Ages were able to regard him as orthodox, and to imbibe from him much Platonism which would otherwise have been viewed with suspicion.
The work is an alternation of verse and prose: Boethius, in his own person, speaks in prose, while Philosophy answers in verse. There is at certain resemblance to Dante, who was no doubt influenced by him in the Vita Nuova.
The Consolations, which Gibbon rightly calls a «golden volume,» begins by the statement that Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle are the true philosophers; Stoics, Epicureans, and the rest are usurpers, whom the profane multitude mistook for the friends of philosophy. Boethius says he obeyed the Pythagorean command to «follow God» (not the Christian command). Happiness, which is the same thing as blessedness, is the good, not pleasure. Friendship is a «most sacred thing.» There is much morality that agrees closely with Stoic doctrine, and is in fact largely taken from Seneca. There is a summary, in verse, of the beginning of the Timaeus. This is followed by a great deal of purely Platonic metaphysics. Imperfection, we are told, is a lack, implying the existence of a perfect pattern. He adopts the privative theory of evil. He then passes on to a pantheism which should have shocked Christians, but for some reason did not. Blessedness and God, he says, are both the chiefest good, and are therefore identical. «Men are made happy by the obtaining of divinity.» «They who obtain divinity become gods. Wherefore every one that is happy
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is a god, but by nature there is only one God, but there may be many by participation.» «The sum, origin, and cause of all that is sought after is rightly thought to be goodness.» «The substance of God consisteth in nothing else but in goodness.» Can God do evil? No. Therefore evil is nothing, since God can do everything. Virtuous men are always powerful, and bad men always weak; for both desire the good, but only the virtuous get it. The wicked are more unfortunate if they escape punishment than if they suffer it. (Note that this could not be said of punishment in hell.) «In wise men there is no place for hatred.»
The tone of the book is more like that of Plato than that of Plotinus. There is no trace of the superstition or morbidness of the age, no obsession with sin, no excessive straining after the unattainable. There is perfect philosophic calm—so much that, if the book had been written in prosperity, it might almost have been called smug. Written when it was, in prison under sentence of death, it is as admirable as the last moments of the Platonic Socrates.
One does not find a similar outlook until after Newton. I will quote in extenso one poem from the book, which, in its philosophy, is not unlike Pope Essay on Man.
If Thou wouldst see God’s laws with
