The Close of the Pergamos Period

 •  2 min. read  •  grade level: 11
The council of Ephesus was far from putting an end to these disgraceful contentions; in place of restoring harmony to the church, it rather increased her troubles. John, bishop of Antioch, and other Eastern prelates, judged Cyril and his friends to have acted most unfairly and with unbecoming haste in the matter of Nestorius: hence arose a new controversy, and out of this sprang a new heresy—Eutychianism -which greatly troubled the Eastern churches for about twenty years.
Eutyches, abbot of a convent at Constantinople, in the eagerness of his opposition to Nestorianism, ran into the opposite extreme. He was accused of unsoundness on the doctrines of the incarnation, and denounced as a heretic. This led to another council which was held at Chalcedon in the year 451, and is called, The Fourth General Council. But the details of these local contests fall not within the limits of our "Short Papers." Our plan is to give the reader a distinct outline, in the smallest space possible; and only to present a few details in cases where the name of the person has become a synonym for the opinions he taught; such as Arius, Pelagius, etc., or when the events, such as the great persecutions, have a claim on the sympathy of the church throughout all ages.
In carrying out these purposes, it will now be necessary to turn our attention more especially to the growing power and the lofty pretensions of the church of Rome. In Leo the Great we may see the passing away of the Pergamos period, and the approach of the papal monarchy. But before venturing on these troubled waters, we shall do well to study our divine chart—God's prophetic history of the church during that dark and often stormy period.
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