mperor summons a council to meet at
Ephesus.

[Sidenote: Overthrow of Nestorianism by the Africans.]

[Sidenote: Worship of the Virgin Mary.]

To that council Nestorius repaired, with sixteen bishops and some of
the city populace. Cyril collected fifty, together with a rabble of
sailors, bath-men, and women of the baser sort. The imperial
commissioner with his troops with difficulty repressed the tumult of the
assembly. The rescript was fraudulently read before the arrival of the
Syrian bishops. In one day the matter was completed; the Virgin's party
triumphed, and Nestorius was deposed. On the arrival of the Syrian
ecclesiastics, a meeting of protest was held by them. A riot, with much
bloodshed, occurred in the Cathedral of St. John. The emperor was again
compelled to interfere; he ordered eight deputies from each party to
meet him at Chalcedon. In the meantime court intrigues decided the
matter. The emperor's sister was in after times celebrated by the party
of Cyril as having been the cause of the discomfiture of Nestorius: "the
Holy Virgin of the court of Heaven had found an ally of her own sex in
the holy virgin of the emperor's court." But there were also other very
efficient auxiliaries. In the treasury of the chief eunuch, which some
time after there was occasion to open, was discovered an acknowledgment
of many pounds of gold received by him from Cyril, through Paul, his
sister's son. Nestorius was abandoned by the court, and eventually
exiled to an Egyptian oasis. An edifying legend relates that his
blasphemous tongue was devoured by worms, and that from the heats of an
Egyptian desert he escaped only into the hotter torments of Hell.

So, again, in the affair of Nestorius as in that of Pelagius, Africa
triumphed, and the supremacy of Rome, her ally or confederate, was
becoming more and more distinct.

[Sidenote: The Eutychian controversy.]

A very important result in this gradual evolution of Roman supremacy
arose from the affair of Eutyches, the Archimandrite of a convent of
monks at Constantinople. He had distinguished himself as a leader in the
riots occurring at the time of Nestorius and in other subsequent
troubles. Accused before a synod held in Constantinople of denying the
two natures of Christ, of saying that if there be two natures there must
be two Sons, Eutyches was convicted, and sentence of excommunication
passed upon him. This was, however, only the ostensible cause of his
condemnation;