Therefore those are to be repelled and deservedly restrained who, wishing Theodore to be condemned to the prejudice of the holy synod, say that blessed Cyril proved himself thereafter contrary to so many venerable Fathers, and to the Church, and to himself. But that we may not leave the reader suspicious or doubtful—whether Cyril wrote anything against Theodore or did not write it—the defence of the synod ought to stand firm for us on every side. And therefore something certain must be wrought out of this uncertainty: namely, that it appears to have rightly followed [the right course] in not condemning Theodore or his dogmas, since it perceived that his praises were recited before it. There are found, then, under the name of blessed Cyril, certain things written against Theodore, and certain things for Theodore.
Whence it is necessary that either both are blessed Cyril's, or neither, or one of the two. If, then, both be said to be blessed Cyril's, since the holy synod could not follow him in both, he being contrary to himself—even had it wished to—it ought to have followed him in those things in which he does not impugn the opinions of the other Fathers and the judgment of the Church. But if neither be said to be blessed Cyril's, there is no reason why the holy synod should be thought to have been bound to impugn the opinions of so many Fathers and the judgment of the Church. And if one of the two be said to be blessed Cyril's, the holy synod is to be praised because it believed those to be his which do not impugn the opinions of the other Fathers and the judgment of the Church.
But if even by some certain and manifest judgment it were proved that those writings against Theodore, rather than those for Theodore, are blessed Cyril's, and it were shown that this could in no way have escaped that same synod—who would blame it even then, because it did not itself also blame Theodore? For you believe those writings against Theodore to be Cyril's, in which, nevertheless, it is said: «There were written by the great Theodore, against the heresies of the Arians and Eunomians, perhaps twenty books, and still more besides; and apart from these he interpreted other evangelical and apostolic writings. And these labours indeed no one has dared to censure, but rather by a favourable decree to honour the zeal for right dogmas which is in them.
» How would he blame Theodore, as though [he were] of the inventors of the Nestorian or any other heresy, since he could neither have written twenty and more books irreproachably against the heretics, nor rightly interpreted the evangelical and apostolic writings, if he had thought ill in any way concerning the Christian faith? For we refute all heretics from no other source more than from the evangelical and apostolic Scriptures. And it is altogether self-contradictory that anyone should be said both to have rightly interpreted the evangelical and apostolic writings, and not to have rightly thought concerning the Christian faith.
But if these writings against Theodore, which alone were supposed to be blessed Cyril's, did not destroy themselves, no one but the most absurd would judge that [the synod] ought not to have followed, in the matter of Theodore, the opinion of those Fathers who—dwelling with him in the same province, and frequently and familiarly conferring with measured discretion about the faith—knew best with what intention he said the things which seem to offend some who are ignorant of this. For it would have been too grievous to follow the sounds of words—nay, the signs of sounds figured with ink upon little sheets—and to despise the testimonies of holy consciences, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on little sheets but on fleshly tablets, which bore the testimony to Theodore's doctrine.
But who, unless inconsiderate, would believe—who, unless impudent, would say—who, unless obstinate, would affirm—that Cyril ought, by the holy synod, to have been (I will not say preferred, but even) compared to John of Constantinople alone? not only by reason of the greater authority of John's merits, but also because the synod ought to have believed John, rather than Cyril, concerning Theodore, as an old friend and from the beginning a fellow-disciple; Cyril, whom it knew to have written even against John himself, likewise already dead, contrary to the judgment of the apostolic see, so that a courtier bishop ordered his name to be removed from the catalogue of bishops, as of one profane and excluded from the ecclesiastical walls, on the ground that the traitor Judas ought not to be inscribed with the apostles, nor Jechoniah, being expelled, be counted together with David and Samuel and the prophets?
[Cyril,] whom it also knew to have communicated with the aforesaid Theodore, as long as he survived, and never to have rebuked him while living, when he himself could have interpreted his own words and made certain anything that might seem doubtful in him? Religiously, therefore, would the synod act, if, approving the faith of Cyril in which he did not dissent from the Fathers, it did not approve the suspicion which he had concerning Theodore against the opinions of so many Fathers; just as also, approving the faith of John of Antioch and of the rest of the Orientals, and of the other priests who convened with him at Ephesus from various provinces—a faith in which they did not dissent from the Fathers—it disapproved the suspicion which they had had concerning blessed Cyril himself:
especially because, if that synod be said to have believed Theodore of Mopsuestia to have been blamed by blessed Cyril, it cannot be denied that it would also have believed the holy Diodore to have been at the same time reproached by him. For, as we recalled in the fourth book, whoever is believed to be the reproacher of both is one and the same, both being equally blamed in the same work and in the same cause of the faith. And therefore, if there had been no opinions of the Fathers on behalf of Theodore—which the synod would without doubt have impugned, had it presumed to condemn him—it is evident that Theodore the disciple could not justly have been condemned by the authority of Cyril apart from his master Diodore.
But the synod could not condemn Diodore, who, as we have shown, was commended by the great luminaries of the Church, that is, by Athanasius, Peter, and Timothy, bishops of Alexandria, by Basil of Caesarea in Cappadocia, by John of Constantinople, by Epiphanius of Cyprus, and by the Egyptian bishops who were confessors sent into exile under the emperor Valens. He has also the great testimony of the council assembled at Constantinople against Macedonius, in which it is plain that he took part; and of the religious princes Gratian, Valentinian, and Theodosius the Elder; and finally of Julian the apostate emperor, who reproached him because he confessed God to have been born of a virgin, and because he proclaimed Jesus the Galilean to be both eternal God and one who had died.
Therefore, since the holy synod could in no way condemn Diodore against these testimonies, how could it condemn Theodore his disciple—or, as has been said, if it were supported by no testimonies of the Fathers, how could it justly condemn one who held these same opinions which his master, without being condemned, also held? And so there is no reason why the synod should be reproached on account of those things which the blessed Cyril is said to have written against Theodore, in that it pronounced orthodox the letter of Ibas containing his praises. For even if Cyril, writing against Theodore, wrote nothing in his favor, still the sound reason and liberty of the Council of Chalcedon were to be praised, in that it did not approve Cyril without qualification;
since even the sound reason and liberty of Paul, the least of the apostles, are praised, in that, boldly rebuking Peter, the first of the apostles, when he had been drawn into hypocrisy and was not walking by the right way toward the truth of the Gospel, he withstood him to his face, and rebuked him before them all. It would therefore seem neither novel nor contrary to the Christian religion that, against the opinions of so great Fathers, that holy and great synod should not accept Cyril in the case of Theodore—just as no one says that he ought to be accepted in the case of John of Constantinople.