The Council Held Fast to Antiquity

After this we added also the ruling of blessed Cyril, which is contained in these same church proceedings. For when the letter of Capreolus, bishop of Carthage, had been read, in which he earnestly pleads that novelty be driven away and antiquity maintained, Cyril made a proposal and carried it, which it may not be out of place to insert here. At the close of the proceedings he says: “Let the letter of Capreolus also, the reverend and most religious bishop of Carthage, which has been read, be entered in the acts. His mind is plain: he pleads that the doctrines of the ancient faith be confirmed, and that those which are new, wantonly devised, and impiously spread abroad be rejected and condemned.” All the bishops cried out, “These are the words of all; this we all say; this we all desire.” What do “the words of all” and “the desires of all” mean, but that what has been handed down from antiquity should be kept, and what has been newly devised should be rejected with contempt? [a]

Next we expressed our admiration for the humility and holiness of that council. The number of priests was so great, almost the greater part of them metropolitans, and they were so learned and well read that almost all of them were able to take part in debates on doctrine. The very fact that they had been gathered for the purpose might have seemed to embolden them to decide something on their own authority. Yet they made no innovation, presumed nothing, and claimed absolutely nothing for themselves, but took every possible care to hand down to those after them nothing but what they had themselves received from their fathers. And not only did they settle the matter then in hand well, but they also set an example to those who would come after them of how they too should hold to the decisions of sacred antiquity and condemn the inventions of profane novelty. [b]

We also spoke out against the wicked presumption of Nestorius in boasting that he was the first and the only one who understood Holy Scripture, and that all those teachers were ignorant who before him had explained the sacred oracles: the whole body of priests, if you please, the whole body of confessors and martyrs, some of whom had published commentaries on the law of God, while others had agreed with them in their comments or had accepted them. In a word, he confidently asserted that the whole church was in error even now, and always had been in error, because, as it seemed to him, it had followed and was still following ignorant and misguided teachers. [c]