Reconciliation with Antioch

The Council of Ephesus condemned Nestorius but did not pacify the Church. For roughly two years after 431, Alexandria and Rome stood in open schism with John of Antioch and the bishops of the East, each side claiming to be the council and each having deposed the other’s leaders. The settlement that ended the rupture — the Formula of Reunion of 433 — was hammered out under imperial pressure and through patient mediation, and it required Cyril to subscribe to a markedly dyophysite Antiochene creed. This file traces the road to peace: the post-Ephesus schism, the mediation of Acacius of Beroea and Paul of Emesa, the Symbol of Union, the text of the Formula and its analysis, and Cyril’s acceptance of it in Laetentur caeli. The Formula is the strongest single proof that Cyril’s deepest commitment was to the one hypostatic subject, not to the mia physis slogan — and its language would resurface, almost verbatim, at Chalcedon.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Church Father)

The Schism After Ephesus

The Council of Ephesus in the summer of 431 had not so much resolved the controversy as ratified its division. Cyril’s council deposed Nestorius; the rival conciliabulum of John of Antioch and the Easterners, arriving late, deposed Cyril and Memnon of Ephesus in turn; and the imperial commissioner for a time held all three under arrest. When the dust settled and Theodosius II confirmed the deposition of Nestorius, the result was a Church split along its oldest fault line. Nestorius retired (eventually to monastic confinement and then exile), but John of Antioch and the bishops of the East remained out of communion with Alexandria, refusing to accept the legitimacy of Cyril’s proceedings and, above all, refusing to subscribe to the Twelve Anathemas, which they continued to read as Apollinarian (McGuckin, St. Cyril of Alexandria: The Christological Controversy, 107–125; Russell, Cyril of Alexandria, 48–49).

This schism lasted roughly two years. It was intolerable for several reasons. It left two great apostolic sees — and with them whole provinces of the empire — in mutual excommunication; it embarrassed the orthodox cause by making the condemnation of Nestorius look like a partisan act rather than the judgment of the whole Church; and it was a standing affront to the emperor, whose council had been meant to produce unity. Theodosius II accordingly pressed hard for peace, leaning on both parties, and it was largely imperial insistence that kept the negotiations alive when theological suspicion would have let them collapse (Russell, 48–49; Wessel, Cyril of Alexandria and the Nestorian Controversy, 257–262).

The Mediation: Acacius of Beroea and Paul of Emesa

The reconciliation was the work of intermediaries who had the trust of both sides. The senior figure was the aged Acacius of Beroea, a bishop of immense age and reputation — well over a hundred years old by the reckonings of the sources — who stood outside the partisan heat and could speak frankly to both John and Cyril. Acacius acted as the broker who established the terms on which peace might be possible: Cyril must show that he had not introduced novelty or Apollinarianism, and John must agree to acknowledge the condemnation of Nestorius (McGuckin, 108–112; Russell, 49).

The decisive envoy was Paul of Emesa, whom John of Antioch sent to Alexandria carrying the Antiochene confession of faith and authorized to negotiate. Cyril received him, and the reception itself became a public theater of reconciliation. Cyril permitted Paul to preach in the churches of Alexandria, and Paul delivered, in Cyril’s own cathedral and with Cyril present, a sermon openly confessing the Theotokos — an Antiochene bishop proclaiming the contested Marian title in the heart of Cyril’s city. The congregation is reported to have acclaimed it. The sermon was a calculated, visible sign that the gulf could be bridged: the East would own Theotokos, and Alexandria would receive the East’s profession as orthodox (McGuckin, 110–113; Russell, 49–50). On the strength of Paul’s negotiations and his subscription on John’s behalf, the two sides moved toward formal reunion.

The Symbol of Union and Theodoret’s Draft

The doctrinal basis of the settlement was not a fresh composition by Cyril but a pre-existing Antiochene statement, the so-called Symbol of Union (the symbolon tēs henōseōs). This was the creed-like profession that the Eastern bishops had drawn up and presented during the Ephesus period as their own statement of the faith — a document of decidedly Antiochene cast, emphasizing the integrity of the two natures and the distinction of what is proper to each. [Disputed: the precise authorship of the Symbol of Union. It is widely and plausibly attributed to Theodoret of Cyrrhus, the ablest theological pen of the Eastern party and the author of the early refutation of Cyril’s Anathemas; the attribution is standard in the scholarship but rests on inference about style and the Eastern delegation’s drafting process rather than on an explicit ascription in the Acts (McGuckin, 108–110; Russell, 49).]

That the basis of peace was an Antiochene text drafted (in all likelihood) by the very man who had attacked the Twelve Anathemas is the crux of the whole episode. Cyril did not impose his own formula on the East; he accepted theirs, with its dyophysite vocabulary, asking in return only the condemnation of Nestorius and the confession of Theotokos.

The Formula of Reunion: Text and Analysis

The text Cyril embraced confesses that “our Lord Jesus Christ” is “perfect God and perfect man of a rational soul and body, begotten before the ages from the Father as to his Godhead, and the same in the last days for us and for our salvation born of the Virgin Mary as to his manhood; the same consubstantial with the Father as to his Godhead and consubstantial with us as to his manhood; for a union of two natures has been made; for which cause we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord” (Formula of Reunion, quoted in Cyril, Laetentur caeli, Ep. 39, PG 77, 173–181; CPG 5339; trans. McGuckin, 343–345; FC 76 [McEnerney], Letter 39).

Several features of this language are extraordinary on Cyril’s lips. First, the double consubstantiality: Christ is homoousios with the Father in Godhead and “consubstantial with us as to his manhood.” This guarantees the full, complete, undiminished humanity that the Antiochenes had feared Cyril’s mia physis idiom denied — the very point on which the charge of Apollinarianism turned. Second, and most striking, the Formula speaks of “a union of two natures” (henōsis dyo physeōn) — a dyophysite construction, “two natures,” that stands in evident verbal tension with Cyril’s beloved “one incarnate nature of the Word.” Yet the Formula immediately draws from this union the conclusion Cyril cared about most: “for which cause we confess one Christ, one Son, one Lord.” The unity of the concrete subject is preserved even as the duality of the natures is named.

The Formula then addresses the scriptural sayings — the question the Fourth Anathema had treated so combatively. It states that “as to the expressions concerning the Lord in the Gospels and Epistles, we recognize that theologians employ some in common as relating to one person (prosōpon), and distinguish others as relating to two natures.” This is a careful balance: the sayings of Scripture belong to the one prosōpon — there is a single referent who speaks and acts — yet some sayings are appropriately distinguished according to the nature (divine or human) from which they proceed. It concedes the Antiochene concern to “distinguish” without conceding two subjects: the distinction is at the level of the natures, the unity at the level of the person.

Finally, the Formula confesses “the holy Virgin to be Theotokos, because God the Word was made flesh and became man and from his very conception united to himself the temple taken from her.” The Marian title — the seed of the whole controversy — is affirmed, and grounded precisely as Cyril wished: in the conception, the union of the Word with the humanity is from the first instant, so that the one born of Mary is God the Word himself, and Mary is therefore truly God-bearer. The image of the “temple,” with its Antiochene resonance, is retained, but the title Theotokos is non-negotiably present.

Cyril’s Acceptance: Laetentur caeli

Cyril received this confession and accepted it, ratifying the reunion in a letter to John of Antioch that opens with the words “Let the heavens rejoice and let the earth be glad” — Laetentur caeli et exsultet terra — by which it is known. This is Epistle 39 (PG 77, 173–181; CPG 5339; trans. McGuckin, 343–348; FC 76 [McEnerney]). In it Cyril quotes the Formula in full, declares the East’s profession orthodox, and restores communion with John of Antioch and the bishops of the East. The schism was over. [Disputed: the precise date. That the reunion was sealed in 433 (in the spring) is secure; a specific “23 April 433” is sometimes given, but the exact day is not securely attested and should be treated as uncertain.]

Why the Formula Reveals Cyril’s Real Commitment

The significance of Laetentur caeli is hard to overstate, and it cuts against a common caricature of Cyril as a man wedded to a single slogan. He had spent years defending “one incarnate nature of the Word” and the Twelve Anathemas; now he set his name to a creed that spoke of “two natures,” confessed Christ “consubstantial with us as to his manhood,” and distinguished some scriptural sayings according to the natures. He did this without retracting his earlier teaching, because he judged that the Formula said, in different vocabulary, what he had always meant.

What this proves is that Cyril’s non-negotiable was the one hypostatic subject — the single concrete “who” of the incarnate Word — not the mia physis phrasing as such. He could accept dyophysite language and double consubstantiality the moment he was satisfied that the unity of the one Christ was safeguarded and that the natures were not being used to smuggle back in two subjects. The mia physis formula had been, for him, a way of guarding the single subject; where another formula guarded it as well, he could subscribe. This is the deepest reading of his Christology, and the Formula is its proof-text (McGuckin, 107–125, 235–243; Russell, 49–51; Wessel, 262–268).

The Bridge to Chalcedon

The Formula of Reunion did not stay buried in the correspondence of 433. Its central phrases — “consubstantial with us as to his manhood,” the union of natures issuing in “one Christ, one Son, one Lord,” the distinction of the sayings according to the natures and their unity in the one prosōpon — were taken up, almost verbatim, into the Definition of Chalcedon (451). Chalcedon’s celebrated “in two natures” and its double homoousios are, in their wording, heirs of the Formula that Cyril himself had signed. The council that the Miaphysite tradition would reject as a betrayal of Cyril in fact enshrined a text Cyril had ratified with his own hand — a paradox that the later sections of this compendium must reckon with.

References

Cyril of Alexandria, Letter to John of Antioch (Laetentur caeli), Ep. 39, PG 77, 173–181; CPG 5339; trans. John A. McGuckin, St. Cyril of Alexandria: The Christological Controversy, 343–348; FC 76 (McEnerney), Letter 39. The Formula of Reunion is quoted within this letter.
The Formula of Reunion (Symbol of Union), preserved in Ep. 39 and in the conciliar Acts: Eduard Schwartz, ed., Acta Conciliorum Oecumenicorum, tome 1: Concilium Universale Ephesenum (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1922–29); cited as ACO I.1.
John A. McGuckin, St. Cyril of Alexandria: The Christological Controversy (Crestwood, NY: SVS Press, 2004).
Norman Russell, Cyril of Alexandria (London: Routledge, 2000).
Susan Wessel, Cyril of Alexandria and the Nestorian Controversy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).