tably
preserved in an old Latin version, (Synodicon, c. 203, Concil. tom.
iv. p. 465--468.) The mask is almost dropped, and the saints speak the
honest language of interest and confederacy.]

[Footnote 51: The tedious negotiations that succeeded the synod of
Ephesus are diffusely related in the original acts, (Concil. tom. iii.
p. 1339--1771, ad fin. vol. and the Synodicon, in tom. iv.,) Socrates,
(l. vii. c. 28, 35, 40, 41,) Evagrius, (l. i. c. 6, 7, 8, 12,)
Liberatus, (c. 7--10, 7-10,) Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv. p.
487--676.) The most patient reader will thank me for compressing so much
nonsense and falsehood in a few lines.]

The rash and obstinate Nestorius, before the end of the synod, was
oppressed by Cyril, betrayed by the court, and faintly supported by his
Eastern friends. A sentiment or fear or indignation prompted him, while
it was yet time, to affect the glory of a voluntary abdication: [52]
his wish, or at least his request, was readily granted; he was conducted
with honor 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, [53] which ranked him with
Simon the magician, proscribed his opinions and followers, condemned
his writings 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.
[54] Secluded from the church and from the world, the exile was still
pursued by the rage of bigotry and war. A wandering tribe of the
Blemmyes or 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 magistrat