The Council of Ephesus.

[79.] These then are the men whose writings, whether as judges or as witnesses, were recited in the Council: St. Peter, bishop of Alexandria, a most excellent Doctor and most blessed martyr, Saint Athanasius, bishop of the same city, a most faithful Teacher, and most eminent Confessor, Saint Theophilus, also bishop of the same city, a man illustrious for his faith, his life, his knowledge, whose successor, the revered Cyril, now⁵¹⁹

519 This marks Vincentius’s date within very narrow limits, viz. after the Council of Ephesus, and before Cyril’s death. Cyril died in 444.

[80.] These all then, to the sacred number of the decalogue,⁵²⁰

520 Vincentius’s copy of the acts of the Council appears to have contained extracts from no more than ten Fathers. But the Fathers from whose writings extracts were read were twelve in number; the two omitted by Vincentius being Atticus, bishop of Constantinople, and Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium. In Labbe’s Concilia, where the whole are given, it is remarked that in one manuscript the two last mentioned occupy a different place from the others. Dean Milman (Latin Christianity, vol. 1, p. 164) speaks of the passages read, “as of very doubtful bearing on the question raised by Nestorius.” It is true only two, those from Athanasius and Gregory Nazianzen, contain the crucial term “Theotocos” but all express the truth which “Theotocos” symbolises. That the word was not of recent introduction, Bishop Pearson (Creed, Art. 3) shows by quotations from other writers besides those produced at the Council, going back as far as to Origen. The Fathers cited may certainly be said to fulfil to some extent Vincentius’s requirement of universality. They represent the teaching of Alexandria, Rome, Carthage, Milan, Constantinople, and Asia Minor; but his appeal would have been more to his purpose if antiquity had been more expressly represented. With the exception of Cyprian, all the passages cited were from writers of comparatively recent date at the time, though, as Vincentius truly remarks, others might have been produced. Petavius (De Incarn. l. xiv. c. 15), in defending the cultus of the blessed Virgin and of the saints generally, lays much stress on this omission of citations from earlier Fathers at the Council, as he does also on similar omissions in the case of the fourth, fifth, and sixth Councils, with what object is sufficiently obvious. Bishop Bull points out Petavius’s disposition to disparage or misrepresent the teaching of the earlier Fathers, in another and still more important instance. (Defens. Fid. Nic.) Introd. § 8.

E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH