"In the first place the early church instinctively shared the exclusivity of Judaism. No common agreement or toleration was felt to be possible for moral or religious pluralism. . . ."
"Most of the criticism [Cyril of Alexandria] has attracted for this action centres round a somewhat 'modern' sense of fair play in democratic process, or gentlemanly behaviour in intellectual argument. The case is often epitomised in highly anachronistic comments to the effect that if both parties (Cyril and Nestorius) had calmly heard one another out they could surely have come to a sensible resolution of their theological differences through compromise. But whether or not this is even an accurate description of how twentieth century university theologians behave with one another (and that is a debatable case) it certainly could not lay any claim to represent patristic procedure. Several contemporary perspectives on the conciliar fathers tend to represent them as 'seeking' the mind of the church through dialogue and enquiry. A forward-looking developmental, or evolutionary view of doctrine is presupposed here, such as that postulated by John Henry Newman in the 19th century and popularised thereafter, but far from current in the patristic understanding of the nature of tradition.
"In the Byzantine church the perceived duty of those attending councils was to 'recognize', by comparison with past precedent, the faith of the church, and having recognised it acclaim it in the Spirit. This was the force and role of the numerous episcopal 'acclamations' that one finds within the acts of an ancient council, designed to evoke the way in which the apostles of old had been inspired by the Spirit of God to teach the faith in the original Pentecostal enthusiasm. It is an implicit, but nonetheless clear, claim to stand as bishops in the apostolic succession. It was not expected, therefore, that senior hierarchs should have to agonise about what that faith was, or search out its meaning, given that they had lived by it for years and were holding the ecclesiastical office as teachers of the faith. This important context holds true even in those cases, such as the present one, when the matters under discussion were highly complex. It was expected that theologians should articulate positions, but the 'acclamation' of them, by a supposedly unanimous episcopal voice, was the decisive factor. In short an open and neutral enquiry over doctrine that was designed to achieve an internationally acceptable compromise was never in the minds or expectations of any of those attending the council of Ephesus, except perhaps Nestorius. This concept of the definition of christianity by progressive compromise was, and still is, alien to the Orthodox and Catholic communions who have retained synodical process, but more importantly in the present instance it is an unsuitable standard of assessment, both historically and ideologically, for the events that constituted ancient conciliar meetings."
John McGuckin, Saint Cyril of Alexandria and the Christological controversy: its history, theology, and texts (Crestwood, NY: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2004 [Leiden and New York: Brill, 1994]), 8, 70-71. (There may be more; I was only skimming.)
