Dr. John Sentimu Archbishop

http://downloads.fm1032.com.au/oh/oh DrJohnSentimu.mp3 Dr John Sentimu Archbishop of York is the second highest Bishop in the Church of England.

On the death of Theophilus, Archbishop of Alexandria, in A.D. 412, his nephew and successor, S. Cyril, comes suddenly before us. For of S. Cyril's previous life we have only a few scattered notices. We do not know in what year he was born, nor any thing of his parents, nor where he was brought up. That S. Cyril had received a thoroughly good education, is abundantly clear; not only from his very extensive reading, which a mind of such large grasp as S. Cyril's would ever provide for itself, but that his reading being so well digested implies good early training. The great accuracy of his Theology implies a most accurate Theological education. That education included a large range of secular study as well as of Divinity, and probably comprised a good deal of learning by heart, not only of the holy Scriptures but also of profane authors, as witness a line of Antipater Sidonius quoted in his Commentary on Zechariah. He quotes too Josephus on the Jewish war. On Hab. iii. 2, he mentions interpretations of that verse of two different kinds: on Hosea he gives a long extract from a writer whom we do not apparently possess. Tillemont remarks, that " 1 his books against Julian shew that he had a large acquaintance with secular writers. |viii

We may infer that S. Cyril was brought up at some monastery, as a place of Christian education, and from the great reverence which he ever paid to S. Isidore, Abbot of Pelusium, it seems not unlikely that S. Isidore was his instructor during some part of his early life. S. Isidore alludes to some especial tie, in one of his brief letters to S. Cyril, when Archbishop. Near the beginning, S. Isidore says, " 2If I be your father as you say I be,.....or if I be your son as I know I am, seeing that you hold the chair of S. Mark &c. The large number of Platonic words in S. Isidore's letters seem to indicate that he too had extensive reading of Plato, and S. Cyril may have acquired from him some of his knowledge of Aristotle.
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But although S. Cyril became Archbishop in October A.D. 412, his first Letter was for 414, in the early part of which (as Tillemont points out) S. Cyril speaks of having succeeded his Uncle. He introduces the subject by mentioning the natural dread of those of old, of |x " 7 the greatness of the Divine Ministry," and speaking of Moses and Jeremiah as instances of this, adds, that "since the garb of the priesthood calls to preach, in fear of the words, Speak and hold not thy peace, I come of necessity to write thus."
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In A.D. 428, Nestorius was brought from Antioch to be Archbishop of Constantinople.
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After waiting a fortnight, during which time, if all had been there, the business might have been completed and the Bishops dismissed, S. Cyril wrote to John Archbishop of Antioch.
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John, in his Relatio to the Emperors, says,
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While this letter was on its way, some of the Bishops of John's party arrived, and with them a letter to S. Cyril in which John spoke of being only about four days off. The Bishops of John's party were Alexander Metropolitan of Apamea and Alexander Metropolitan of Hierapolis; and, to all appearance, though we are not told so, Theodoret and Meletius bishop of Neocaesarea. The Council, speaking of the arrival in their Eelatio to S. Celestine, says,

"51 Nevertheless after the sixteenth day there preceded him some of the Bishops who were with him, two Metropolitans, Alexander of Apamea and another Alexander of Hierapolis; and when we complained of the tardy arrival of the most reverend Bishop John, they said not once but over and over, 'he bid us tell your Reverence that, if he should even yet loiter, the synod was not to be put off, but rather to do what was meet.' "

S. Cyril says nearly the same in his Apology to the Emperor 52. Nevertheless it is plain that John meant the words, 'if I yet loiter,' to be taken in connection with his own letter to S. Cyril that he was but 5 or 6 days off, and so that he should have that interval allowed him.

The Council however, in the distress of many of |xxxi its members, determined to assemble the next day. Nestorius' friends headed by Tranquillinus, Bishop of Antioch in Pisidia, got up a memorial to the Council that they should wait for John of Antioch, "who is himself now at the door, as he has intimated by his Letters," and for some Western Bishops.
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S. Cyril alludes to this Letter of his in his letter to his Proctors at Constantinople 55 and a fragment of it is preserved |xxxiii by John Archbishop of Caesarea in Palestine in his Thesaurus of extracts of S. Cyril in Defence of the Council of Chalcedon, and two or three fragments of it by John's opponent, Severus of Antioch, both belonging to the earlier half of the sixth century.
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John of Antioch, at a later period, entreating Nestorius to accept the term, in order to prevent the impending schism, said to him,
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John endeavoured to smoothe to him the adoption of the word.
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For 'in the beginning was the Word,' as John saith. The creature did not bear the Creator, but she bare a Man, the instrument of Deity: the Holy Spirit did not create God the Word; for that |lii which was born of her was of the Holy Spirit; but He framed of the Virgin for God the Word a temple wherein He should dwell.'
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S. Celestine wrote the same to John of Antioch 142.
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John of Antioch was alarmed at this prospect of a rent, and wrote to Nestorius to prevent it by accepting the word Theotocos 144.
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Nestorius does not seem to mind his own deposition, so that the sentence against Cyril and |lxxviiiMemnon be also confirmed; as Count John reported to the Emperor, that the party of John bore patiently the notice of the deposition of Nestorius, when united with that of Cyril and Memnon 169.
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Evagrius 172 supplies the fact, that his former friend John of Antioch reported to the Emperor his continued blasphemies, and so 'Theodosius condemned him to perpetual banishment.'
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According to the statement of John, S. Cyril wrote to him two days before the opening of the Council, that the whole Council was awaiting his arrival. He meant then to wait for him. Moderns speak of S. Cyril as arbitrary; no one has ventured to say he was fickle.
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'178 Before we departed to Ephesus, the blessed John wrote to the most-God-beloved Bishop Eutherius of Tyana, and Firmus of Caesarea, and Theodotus of Ancyra, calling these Chapters, teaching of Apollinarius.
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John set forth this in the preamble which was accepted by his Conciliabulum.
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The 15 or 17 181 Bishops of John of Antioch, even if united with the 10 or 15 182 Bishops of Nestorius, were but a fraction of the Church.
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If John had brought into the Council the charge of heresy, which his Conciliabulum alleged so perseveringly against S. Cyril and Memnon, it would have rested with Candidian, the friend of Nestorius, to rule in what order the charges should be taken. Candidian threw himself so entirely into John's side (even in intercepting the Relation of the Council to the Emperor), that he would, without doubt, have preferred the charge of heresy against S. Cyril. What the result would have been, He only can know, Who sees the things which have not been, as if they had been. We cannot write the things which have not been, since God Alone knows the hearts which He made, and how they would have developed under trials which He spared.
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S. Sixtus coincided altogether with S. Cyril, but spoke strongly; 'let him [John] know that he shall be one of the Catholic body, if, undoing all undone by the Synod, he shew himself a Catholic priest.'
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This we sought to hear.' S. Cyril wrote to John the exulting letter, beginning with the words of the Psalm, 'Let the heavens rejoice and the earth be glad. For the middle-wall of partition is dissolved; what saddened has ceased; all manner of discord is removed. For Christ, the Saviour of us all, has bestowed peace upon all His Churches.'

He says, in a sort of under-tone to Maximian 216 who had succeeded Nestorius,
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S. Proclus sent to John of Antioch a Tome containing Nestorian passages of Theodore (equally sparing his name), requesting him to have them condemned.
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S. Cyril indignantly set aside any likeness of 'the ill-reputed doctrine of Diodore and Theodore' to that of the great fathers whom John alleged 229. To John of Antioch he wrote 230, that no one should utter in Church the ungodly doctrines of Theodore; but he dwelt on the tenderness, with which those returning should be received, and not be reproached for the past: to Proclus 231, that Theodore had died in the communion of the Church; that in rejecting his

On the death of Theophilus, Archbishop of Alexandria, in A.D. 412, his nephew and successor, S. Cyril, comes suddenly before us.For of S. Cyril's previous life we have only a few scattered notices.We do not know in what year he was born, nor any thing of his parents, nor where he was brought up.That S. Cyril had received a thoroughly good education, is abundantly clear; not only from his very extensive reading, which a mind of such large grasp as S. Cyril's would ever provide for itself, but that his reading being so well digested implies good early training.The great accuracy of his Theology implies a most accurate Theological education.That education included a large range of secular study as well as of Divinity, and probably comprised a good deal of learning by heart, not only of the holy Scriptures but also of profane authors, as witness a line of Antipater Sidonius quoted in his Commentary on Zechariah.He quotes too Josephus on the Jewish war.On Hab. iii.2, he mentions interpretations of that verse of two different kinds: on Hosea he gives a long extract from a writer whom we do not apparently possess.Tillemont remarks, that " 1 his books against Julian shew that he had a large acquaintance with secular writers."|viii

We may infer that S. Cyril was brought up at some monastery, as a place of Christian education, and from the great reverence which he ever paid to S. Isidore, Abbot of Pelusium, it seems not unlikely that S. Isidore was his instructor during some part of his early life.
...
Isidore alludes to some especial tie, in one of his brief letters to S. Cyril, when Archbishop.Near the beginning, S. Isidore says, " 2 If I be your father as you say I be,.....or if I be your son as I know I am, seeing that you hold the chair of S. Mark &c."The large number of Platonic words in S. Isidore's letters seem to indicate that he too had extensive reading of Plato, and S. Cyril may have acquired from him some of his knowledge of Aristotle.

But a mind of S. Cyril's grasp would feel itself lost in the desert, yearning for its own calling, and another Letter 3 of the same S.Isidore to S.Cyril, reproaching him with his heart being in the world, may belong to this period.His uncle Archbishop Theophilus had him to live with him and, we may infer, ordained him priest and made him one of his Clergy.
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But although S. Cyril became Archbishop in October A.D. 412, his first Letter was for 414, in the early part of which (as Tillemont points out) S. Cyril speaks of having succeeded his Uncle.He introduces the subject by mentioning the natural dread of those of old, of |x " 7 the greatness of the Divine Ministry," and speaking of Moses and Jeremiah as instances of this, adds, that "since the garb of the priesthood calls to preach, in fear of the words, Speak and hold not thy peace, I come of necessity to write thus."

Much of these quiet years S. Cyril probably employed on his earlier writings: of these, two were on select passages of the Pentateuch; one volume being allotted to those which S. Cyril thought could in any way be adapted as types of our Lord, the other to the rest, as being types of the church.The commentaries on Isaiah and the Minor Prophets and the Books against the Emperor Julian probably belong to this period.Besides these S. Cyril, following the example of his great predecessor S. Athanasius, wrote two Books against the Arians: first, the Thesaurus, in which S. Cyril brought to bear his knowledge of Aristotle; then the de Trinitate, which was written, though not published till later, before A.D. 424.In his Paschal homily for that year A.D. 424, S. Cyril also speaks of the Eternal Generation of the Son, and towards the close of the homily 8 he opposes the Arian terms "Generate," "Ingenerate."
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In A.D. 428, Nestorius was brought from Antioch to be Archbishop of Constantinople.
...
After waiting a fortnight, during which time, if all had been there, the business might have been completed and the Bishops dismissed, S. Cyril wrote to John Archbishop of Antioch.
...
John, in his Relatio to the Emperors, says,
...
While this letter was on its way, some of the Bishops of John's party arrived, and with them a letter to S. Cyril in which John spoke of being only about four days off.The Bishops of John's party were Alexander Metropolitan of Apamea and Alexander Metropolitan of Hierapolis; and, to all appearance, though we are not told so, Theodoret and Meletius bishop of Neocaesarea.The Council, speaking of the arrival in their Eelatio to S. Celestine, says,

"51 Nevertheless after the sixteenth day there preceded him some of the Bishops who were with him, two Metropolitans, Alexander of Apamea and another Alexander of Hierapolis; and when we complained of the tardy arrival of the most reverend Bishop John, they said not once but over and over, 'he bid us tell your Reverence that, if he should even yet loiter, the synod was not to be put off, but rather to do what was meet.' "

S. Cyril says nearly the same in his Apology to the Emperor 52.Nevertheless it is plain that John meant the words, 'if I yet loiter,' to be taken in connection with his own letter to S. Cyril that he was but 5 or 6 days off, and so that he should have that interval allowed him.

The Council however, in the distress of many of |xxxi its members, determined to assemble the next day.Nestorius' friends headed by Tranquillinus, Bishop of Antioch in Pisidia, got up a memorial to the Council that they should wait for John of Antioch, "who is himself now at the door, as he has intimated by his Letters," and for some Western Bishops.
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Cyril alludes to this Letter of his in his letter to his Proctors at Constantinople 55 and a fragment of it is preserved |xxxiii by John Archbishop of Caesarea in Palestine in his Thesaurus of extracts of S. Cyril in Defence of the Council of Chalcedon, and two or three fragments of it by John's opponent, Severus of Antioch, both belonging to the earlier half of the sixth century.
...
John of Antioch, at a later period, entreating Nestorius to accept the term, in order to prevent the impending schism, said to him,
...
John endeavoured to smoothe to him the adoption of the word.
...
For 'in the beginning was the Word,' as John saith.The creature did not bear the Creator, but she bare a Man, the instrument of Deity: the Holy Spirit did not create God the Word; for that |lii which was born of her was of the Holy Spirit; but He framed of the Virgin for God the Word a temple wherein He should dwell.'

Nestorius continued to preach the same, sometimes in terms, in themselves sound, but in the context of what is unsound.

From his position as Patriarch in New Rome, the residence of the Emperor, or his personal influence with Theodosius, he could overbear most opposition.What opposition there was came, it had been observed, first from the Laity, then from the Clergy, lastly from the Bishops.

Nestorius, in his first epistle to S. Celestine, told him that he had daily used both 'anger and gentleness' in repressing the Theotocos.His idea of 'anger and gentleness' may be gathered from a formal petition to the Emperors from Basil, a deacon and Archimandrite, and Thalassius a reader and monk, in their petition to the Emperors.In the words of this petition,

'112 By his command and invitation, we went to the See-house, to be fully instructed whether what we had heard concerning him is true.He put us off a second and a third time, and then scarcely bade us say what we wished.But when he had heard from us, that what he had said, that 'Mary only bore a man consubstantial with herself,' and 'what is born of the flesh is flesh,' is not orthodox language, immediately he had us seized, and thence, beaten by the crowd of the officers, we were led to the prison, and there they stripped us naked as prisoners and subject to punishment, bound us to pillars, threw us down and kicked us.
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S. Celestine wrote the same to John of Antioch 142.
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John of Antioch was alarmed at this prospect of a rent, and wrote to Nestorius to prevent it by accepting the word Theotocos 144.
...
Nestorius does not seem to mind his own deposition, so that the sentence against Cyril and |lxxviii Memnon be also confirmed; as Count John reported to the Emperor, that the party of John bore patiently the notice of the deposition of Nestorius, when united with that of Cyril and Memnon 169.
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Evagrius 172 supplies the fact, that his former friend John of Antioch reported to the Emperor his continued blasphemies, and so 'Theodosius condemned him to perpetual banishment.'
...
According to the statement of John, S. Cyril wrote to him two days before the opening of the Council, that the whole Council wa