Homilies and Hymns, Volume 2

Indeed, this corruptive and poisonous seed sown within the Western Church by Byzantium has continued to yield bitter fruits for that Church and Christianity as a whole, and of which we shall speak later.

It was under these circumstances and in this atmosphere that Mar Narsai wrote his following account of the Council of Ephesus, which basically is in accord with that presented by Edward Gibbon and other unbiased Western historians. These Narsai has written in metre, in Meemra homily nine, “On the Holy Fathers,” Mar Diodorus, Mar Theodore, Mar Nestorius, which we have translated in verbatim. Speaking of the controversy between Cyril of Alexandria and Mar Nestorius and the part played by women in the condemnation of Nestorius, Narsai says:

“False witnesses chose deceivers in the judgment of the righteous, in the same manner as Jezebel did in the case of Naboth. Woman killed Naboth for his garden, and the righteous (man) women persecuted from his priestly rank. Fraudulent priests hired women in the sham judgment, and they made them advocates of lies. For gold they sold the truth which cannot be sold; between the seller and purchaser they calumniated the righteous. The mute money deprived the righteous (man) of peace, and despite the fact that it (the money) is dumb, yet it raised its voice against justice.

“Woe unto righteousness, how silent it was before its oppressors, and it could not confute the fraud boldly as it was apt to do.

“Oh, how awful is the iniquity which priests worked against priests, and they did not fear nor shudder from the priesthood they were ministering... The wicked jealousy of the wicked men hated the one who was true because of the word of faith which he interpreted rightly. The head of Egypt (Cyril) was sick and feebled by this news; as he heard the voice that determined his malady (heresy) he was jealous and furious. The Egyptian saw that the probing of his words (revelation of his errors) was a sound remedy, and he did not favour the salutary words.

“Why does he proclaim two names, the Word and the Flesh, and whom does he proclaim in the likeness of the servant and the Creator?

“Why does he not say that Mary is the Mother of God? That she bore the eternal according to the flesh, for He became flesh!

“This was the reason for the jealousy of the Egyptian, and because of this he hated the righteous, as if he were wicked!”

Commenting on the action of those who excommunicated the three great Fathers, namely, Diodorus, Theodore, and Nestorius, Narsai epigrammatically says: in the days of neither of them was there an ecumenical Council, and no command (Royal) for legal inquiries by the priests.

Three ecumenical Councils were convened in the land of the Romans, and the history of each of them is known and the reason is made plain. One