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St Photius the Great, tr. Freese, 1920; selections

55. Codex 55: John Philoponus, Against the Fourth Council

Read the treatise of John Philoponus (or rather Mataeoponus) Against the Holy Fourth Oecumenical Council.¹ The style is characteristic of him. He shamelessly attempts to prove that the council favoured the heresy of Nestorius, and declares that it acquiesced in his excommunication, because it imagined it was doing no harm to the man² by ratifying his doctrine, which Nestorius himself, on whom the condemnation fell, fondly cherished and regarded as the most important thing of all; wherein he indulges in fabrications and outrageous statements, on a par with his mental capacity and the unsteadiness of his opinions. The audacious and idle assertions which he makes against the council, a comedy in four parts, are in no way deserving of credit or even sensible.

In the same volume read a treatise by another John, a Nestorian, Against the same Holy Fourth Council. The author is John of Aegae,³ an impious person, but his diction has beauty and charm, and is brilliant and perspicuous.

Notes

451.
If this is not somewhat ungrammatically for τὸν ἂνθρωπον, the sense may be general, “to a man,” i.e. a person would not feel injured if the point on which he laid most stress were conceded.
Cod. 41. But he is obviously a Eutychian, not a Nestorian, unless the mistake is in Cod. 41., some other John being really the author.