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| Letter of Theodoretus, as some suppose, to Domnus, Bishop of Antioch, written on the Death of Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria. PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
CLXXX.
Letter of Theodoretus, as some suppose, to Domnus, Bishop of Antioch,
written on the Death of Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria.2312
2312 This letter is inserted in the Act. Synod. (vide Mans. ix. 295) as
addressed to John, but Garnerius, with general acceptance, has
substituted Domnus. Its genuineness was contested by Baronius (an. vi.
23) not only on the ground of its ascription to John who predeceased
Cyril four years; but also because its expressions are at once too
Nestorian in doctrine and too extreme in bitterness to have been penned
by Theodoret. Garnerius is of opinion that the extreme Nestorianism and
bitterness of feeling are no arguments against the authorship of
Theodoret; and, as we have already had occasion to notice, our author
can on occasion use very strong language, as for instance in Letter CL.
p. 324, where he alludes to Cyril as a shepherd not only plague smitten
himself but doing his best to inflict more damage on his flock than
that caused by beast of prey, by infecting his charge with his
disease.
“It must be needless to
add that Cyril’s character is not to be estimated aright by
ascribing any serious value to a coarse and ferocious invective against
his memory, which was quoted as Theodoret’s in the fifth General
Council (Theodor. Ep. 180; see Tillemont, xiv. 784). If it were indeed
the production of the pen of Theodoret, the reputation which would
suffer from it would assuredly be his own.” Canon Bright. Dict.
Christ. Biog. I.
“The long and
bitter controversy in which both parties did and said many things they
must have had cause deeply to regret, was closed by the death of Cyril,
June 9, or 27, 444. With Baronius, ‘the cautious’
Tillemont, Cardinal Newman and Dr. Bright, we should be glad to
‘utterly scout’ the idea, that the ‘atrocious
letter’ on Cyril’s death ascribed to Theodoret by the Fifth
Œcumenical Council (Theod. ed. Schulze, Ep. 180; Labbe, v. 507)
which he was said to have delivered by way of pæan (Bright u. s.
176) and ‘the scarcely less scandalous’ sermon (ib.) can
have been written by him. ‘To treat it as genuine would be to
vilify Theodoret.’ ‘The Fathers of the Council’
writes Dr. Newman ‘are no authority on such a matter’
(Hist. Sketches p. 359). A painful suspicion of their genuineness,
however, still lingers and troubles our conception of Theodoret. The
documents may have been garbled, but the general tone too much
resembles that of undisputed polemical writings of Theodoret’s to
allow us entirely to repudiate them. We wish we could. Neander (vol.
iv. p. 13, note, Clark’s tr.) is inclined to accept the
genuineness of the letter, the arguments against which he does not
regard as carrying conviction, and to a large extent deriving their
weight from Tillemont’s ‘Catholic standpoint.’ That
Theodoret should speak in this manner of Cyril’s character and
death cannot, he thinks, appear surprising to those who, without
prejudice, contemplate Cyril and his relations to Theodoret. The
playful description, after the manner of Lucian, of a voyage to the
Shades below, is not to be reckoned a very sharp thing even in
Theodoret. The advice to put a heavy stone over his grave to keep Cyril
down is sufficient proof that the whole is a bitter jest. The world
felt freer now Cyril was gone; and he does not shrink from telling a
friend that he could well spare him. ‘The exaggeration of
rhetorical polemics requires many grains of allowance.’”
Canon Venables. Dict. Christ. Biog. iv. |
At last and with difficulty the
villain has gone. The good and the gentle pass away all too soon; the
bad prolong their life for years.
The Giver of all good, methinks,
removes the former before their time from the troubles of humanity; He
frees them like victors from their contests and transports them to the
better life, that life which, free from death, sorrow and care, is the
prize of them that contend for virtue. They, on the other hand, who
love and practise wickedness are allowed a little longer to enjoy this
present life, either that sated with evil they may afterwards learn
virtue’s lessons, or else even in this life may pay the penalty
for the wickedness of their own ways by being tossed to and fro through
many years of this life’s sad and wicked waves.
This wretch, however, has not
been dismissed by the ruler of our souls like other men, that he may
possess for longer time the things which seem to be full of joy.
Knowing that the fellow’s malice has been daily growing and doing
harm to the body of the Church, the Lord has lopped him off like a
plague and “taken away the reproach from Israel.”2313 His survivors are indeed delighted at
his departure. The dead, maybe, are sorry. There is some ground of
alarm lest they should be so much annoyed at his company as to send him
back to us, or that he should run away from his conductors like the
tyrant of Cyniscus in Lucian.2314
2314 Lucian. “Cataplus sive Tyrannus.”
Cyniscus and Megapenthes come to
the shore of Styx in the same batch of ghosts.
Megapenthes begs hard of
Clotho to let him go back again, but Cyniscus the philosopher, who
professes great delight at having died at last, refuses to get into the
boat. “No; by Zeus, not till we have bound this fellow here, and
set him on board, for I am afraid he will get over you by his
entreaties.” |
Great care must then be taken,
and it is especially your holiness’s business to undertake this
duty, to tell the guild of undertakers to lay a very big and heavy
stone upon his grave, for fear he should come back again, and show his
changeable mind once more. Let him take his new doctrines to the shades
below, and preach to them all day and all night. We are not at all
afraid of his dividing them by making public addresses against true
religion and by investing an immortal nature with death. He will be
stoned not only by ghosts learned in divine law, but also by Nimrod,
Pharaoh and Sennacherib, or any other of God’s
enemies.
But I am wasting words. The poor
fellow is silent whether he will or no, “his breath goeth forth,
he returneth to his earth, in that very day his thoughts
perish.”2315 He is doomed too
to silence of another kind. His deeds, detected, tie his tongue, gag
his mouth, curb his passion, strike him dumb and make him bow down to
the ground.
I really am sorry for the poor
fellow. Truly the news of his death has not caused me unmixed delight,
but it is tempered by sadness. On seeing the Church freed from a plague
of this kind I am glad and rejoice; but I am sorry and do mourn when I
think that the wretch knew no rest from his crimes, but went on
attempting greater and more grievous ones till he died. His idea was,
so it is said, to throw the imperial city into confusion by attacking
true doctrines a second time, and to charge your holiness with
supporting them. But God saw and did not overlook it. “He put his
hook into his nose and his bridle into his lips,”2316 and turned him to the earth whence he
was taken. Be it then granted to your holiness’s prayers that he
may obtain mercy and pity and that God’s boundless clemency may
surpass his wickedness. I beg your holiness to drive away the
agitations of my soul. Many different reports are being bruited abroad
to my alarm announcing general misfortunes. It is even said by some
that your reverence is setting out against your will for the court, but
so far I have despised these reports as untrue. But finding every one
repeating one and the same story I have thought it right to try and
learn the truth from your holiness that I may laugh at these tales if
false, or sorrow not without reason if they are true.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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