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91 "Tractatores." St. Augustine's Expository Lectures on St. John's Gospel are entitled "Tractatus."
95 Julian bishop of Eclanum, a small town in Apulia or Campania was one of nineteen bishops, who, having espoused the cause of Pelagius, and having refused to subscribe a circular letter issued by Zosimus, now adopting the decisions of the African Council (see above note p. 147) were deposed and banished. St Augustine at his death left a work against Julian unfinished, "Opus imperfectum contra Julianum," in which he had been engaged till the sickness of which he died put and end to his labours.
96 The Council of Ephesus, summoned by the Emperor Theodosius to meet at Whitsuntide, 431 (June 7), held its first sitting on June 22, in the Church Of St. Mary, where the blessed Virgin was believed to have been buried.
97 See note above, p. 131, n. 3.
98 This marks Vincentius's date within very narrow limits, viz. after the Council of Ephesus, and before Cyril's death. Cyril died in 444.
99 Vincentius's copy of the acts of the Council appears to have contained extracts from no more than ten Fathers. But the Fathers from whose writings extracts were read were twelve in number; the two omitted by Vincentius being Attiicus, bishop of Constantinople and Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium. In Labbe's Concilia, where the whole are given, it is remarked that in one manuscript the two last mentioned occupy a different place from the others. Dean Milman (Latin Christianity, vol. 1, p. 164) speaks of the passages read, "as of very doubtful bearing on the question raised by Nestorius." It is true only two, those from Athanasius and Gregory Nazianzen, contain the crucial term "Theotocos" but all express the truth which "Theotocos" symbolises. That the word was not of recent introduction, Bishop Pearson (Creed, Art. 3) shows by quotations from other writers besides those produced at the Council, going back as far as to Origen. The Fathers cited may certainly be said to fulfil to some extent Vincentius's requirement of universality. They represent the teaching of Alexandria, Rome, Carthage, Milan, Constantinople, and Asia Minor; but his appeal would have been more to his purpose if antiquity had been more exprossly represented. With the exception of Cyprian, all the passages cited were from writers of comparatively recent date at the time, though, as Vincentius truly remarks, others might have been produced.Petavius (De Incarn. l. xiv. c. 15), in defending the cultus of the blessed Virgin and of the saints generally, lays much stress on this omission of citations from earlior Fathers at the Counsil, as he does also on similar omissions in the case of the fourth, fifth, and sixth Councils, with what object is sufficiently obvious. Bishop Bull points out Petavius's disposition to disparage or misrepresent the teaching of the earlier Fathers, in another and still more important instance. (Defens. Fid. Nic.) Introd. § 8.
100 The letter of Capreolus is given in Labbe's Concilia, vol. 3, col. 529 sqq. The Emperor Theodosius had written to Augustine, requiring his presence at the Council which he had summoned to meet at Ephesus in the matter of Nestorius. But Augustine having died while the letter was on its way, it was brought to Capreolus, bishop of Carthage and Metropolitan. Capreolus would have summoned a meeting of the African bishops, that they might appoint a delegate to represent them at the Council; but the presence of the hostile Vandals, who were laying waste the country in all directions, made it impossible for the bishops to travel to any place of meeting. Capreolus therefore could do no more than send his deacon Besula to represent him and the African Church, bearing with him the letter referred to in the text. The letter, after having been read before the Council, both in the original Latin and in a Greek translation, was, on the motion of Cyril, inserted in the acts.
101 Sixtus III. See the Epistle in Labbe's Concilia, T. iii. Col. 1262.
102 Celestine's letter will be found in the appendix to Vol. x., Part II., of St. Augustine's Works, col. 2403, Paris 1838. See the remarks on Vincentius's mode of dealing with Celestine's letter, Appendix III.