tian factions. During a busy period of three months,
the emperor tried every method, except the most effectual means of
indifference and contempt, to reconcile this theological quarrel. He
attempted to remove or intimidate the leaders by a common sentence, of
acquittal or condemnation; he invested his representatives at Ephesus
with ample power and military force; he summoned from either party eight
chosen deputies to a free and candid conference in the neighborhood of
the capital, far from the contagion of popular frenzy. But the Orientals
refused to yield, and the Catholics, proud of their numbers and of their
Latin allies, rejected all terms of union or toleration. The patience
of the meek Theodosius was provoked; and he dissolved in anger this
episcopal tumult, which at the distance of thirteen centuries assumes
the venerable aspect of the third cumenical council. "God is my
witness," said the pious prince, "that I am not the author of this
confusion. His providence will discern and punish the guilty. Return
to your provinces, and may your private virtues repair the mischief and
scandal of your meeting." They returned to their provinces; but the same
passions which had distracted the synod of Ephesus were diffused over
the Eastern world. After three obstinate and equal campaigns, John of
Antioch and Cyril of Alexandria condescended to explain and embrace: but
their seeming reunion must be imputed rather to prudence than to reason,
to the mutual lassitude rather than to the Christian charity of the
patriarchs.

The Byzantine pontiff had instilled into the royal ear a baleful
prejudice against the character and conduct of his Egyptian rival. An
epistle of menace and invective, which accompanied the summons,
accused him as a busy, insolent, and envious priest, who perplexed the
simplicity of the faith, violated the peace of the church and state,
and, by his artful and separate addresses to the wife and sister of
Theodosius, presumed to suppose, or to scatter, the seeds of discord in
the Imperial family. At the stern command of his sovereign. Cyril had
repaired to Ephesus, where he was resisted, threatened, and confined,
by the magistrates in the interest of Nestorius and the Orientals; who
assembled the troops of Lydia and Ionia to suppress the fanatic and
disorderly train of the patriarch. Without expecting the royal license,
he escaped from his guards, precipitately embarked, deserted the
imperfect synod, and retired