Chapter XLVII: Ecclesiastical Discord.—Part III

The death of the Alexandrian primate, after a reign of thirty-two
years, abandoned the Catholics to the intemperance of zeal and
the abuse of victory. 59 The monophysite doctrine (one incarnate
nature) was rigorously preached in the churches of Egypt and the
monasteries of the East; the primitive creed of Apollinarius was
protected by the sanctity of Cyril; and the name of Eutyches, his
venerable friend, has been applied to the sect most adverse to
the Syrian heresy of Nestorius. His rival Eutyches was the abbot,
or archimandrite, or superior of three hundred monks, but the
opinions of a simple and illiterate recluse might have expired in
the cell, where he had slept above seventy years, if the
resentment or indiscretion of Flavian, the Byzantine pontiff, had
not exposed the scandal to the eyes of the Christian world. His
domestic synod was instantly convened, their proceedings were
sullied with clamor and artifice, and the aged heretic was
surprised into a seeming confession, that Christ had not derived
his body from the substance of the Virgin Mary. From their
partial decree, Eutyches appealed to a general council; and his
cause was vigorously asserted by his godson Chrysaphius, the
reigning eunuch of the palace, and his accomplice Dioscorus, who
had succeeded to the throne, the creed, the talents, and the
vices, of the nephew of Theophilus. By the special summons of
Theodosius, the second synod of Ephesus was judiciously composed
of ten metropolitans and ten bishops from each of the six
dioceses of the Eastern empire: some exceptions of favor or merit
enlarged the number to one hundred and thirty-five; and the
Syrian Barsumas, as the chief and representative of the monks,
was invited to sit and vote with the successors of the apostles.
But the despotism of the Alexandrian patriarch again oppressed
the freedom of debate: the same spiritual and carnal weapons were
again drawn from the arsenals of Egypt: the Asiatic veterans, a
band of archers, served under the orders of Dioscorus; and the
more formidable monks, whose minds were inaccessible to reason or
mercy, besieged the doors of the cathedral. The general, and, as
it should seem, the unconstrained voice of the fathers, accepted
the faith and even the anathemas of Cyril; and the heresy of the
two natures was formally condemned in the persons and writings of
the most learned Orientals. “May those who divide Christ be
divided with the sword, may they be hewn in pieces, may they be
burned alive!” were the charitable wishes of a Christian synod.
60 The innocence and sanctity of Eutyches were acknowledged
without hesitation; but the prelates, more especially those of
Thrace and Asia, were unwilling to depose their patriarch for the
use or even the abuse of his lawful jurisdiction. They embraced
the knees of Dioscorus, as he stood with a threatening aspect on
the footstool of his throne, and conjured him to forgive the
offences, and to respect the dignity, of his brother. “Do you
mean to raise a sedition?” exclaimed the relentless tyrant.
“Where are the officers?” At these words a furious multitude of
monks and soldiers, with staves, and swords, and chains, burst
into the church; the trembling bishops hid themselves behind the
altar, or under the benches, and as they were not inspired with
the zeal of martyrdom, they successively subscribed a blank
paper, which was afterwards filled with the condemnation of the
Byzantine pontiff. Flavian was instantly delivered to the wild
beasts of this spiritual amphitheatre: the monks were stimulated
by the voice and example of Barsumas to avenge the injuries of
Christ: it is said that the patriarch of Alexandria reviled, and
buffeted, and kicked, and trampled his brother of Constantinople:
61 it is certain, that the victim, before he could reach the
place of his exile, expired on the third day of the wounds and
bruises which he had received at Ephesus. This second synod has
been justly branded as a gang of robbers and assassins; yet the
accusers of Dioscorus would magnify his violence, to alleviate
the cowardice and inconstancy of their own behavior.

59 (return) [ Dixi Cyrillum dum viveret, auctoritate sua
effecisse, ne Eutychianismus et Monophysitarum error in nervum
erumperet: idque verum puto...aliquo... honesto modo cecinerat.
The learned but cautious Jablonski did not always speak the whole
truth. Cum Cyrillo lenius omnino egi, quam si tecum aut cum aliis
rei hujus probe gnaris et aequis rerum aestimatoribus sermones
privatos conferrem, (Thesaur. Epistol. La Crozian. tom. i. p.
197, 198) an excellent key to his dissertations on the Nestorian
controversy!]

60 (return) [ At the request of Dioscorus, those who were not
able to roar, stretched out their hands. At Chalcedon, the
Orientals disclaimed these exclamations: but the Egyptians more
consistently declared. (Concil. tom. iv. p. 1012.)]

61 (return) [ (Eusebius, bishop of Dorylaeum): and this testimony
of Evagrius (l. ii. c. 2) is amplified by the historian Zonaras,
(tom. ii. l. xiii. p. 44,) who affirms that Dioscorus kicked like
a wild ass. But the language of Liberatus (Brev. c. 12, in
Concil. tom. vi. p. 438) is more cautious; and the Acts of
Chalcedon, which lavish the names of homicide, Cain, &c., do not
justify so pointed a charge. The monk Barsumas is more
particularly accused, (Concil. tom. iv. p. 1418.)]

The faith of Egypt had prevailed: but the vanquished party was
supported by the same pope who encountered without fear the
hostile rage of Attila and Genseric. The theology of Leo, his
famous tome or epistle on the mystery of the incarnation, had
been disregarded by the synod of Ephesus: his authority, and that
of the Latin church, was insulted in his legates, who escaped
from slavery and death to relate the melancholy tale of the
tyranny of Dioscorus and the martyrdom of Flavian. His provincial
synod annulled the irregular proceedings of Ephesus; but as this
step was itself irregular, he solicited the convocation of a
general council in the free and orthodox provinces of Italy. From
his independent throne, the Roman bishop spoke and acted without
danger as the head of the Christians, and his dictates were
obsequiously transcribed by Placidia and her son Valentinian; who
addressed their Eastern colleague to restore the peace and unity
of the church. But the pageant of Oriental royalty was moved with
equal dexterity by the hand of the eunuch; and Theodosius could
pronounce, without hesitation, that the church was already
peaceful and triumphant, and that the recent flame had been
extinguished by the just punishment of the Nestorians. Perhaps
the Greeks would be still involved in the heresy of the
Monophysites, if the emperor’s horse had not fortunately
stumbled; Theodosius expired; his orthodox sister Pulcheria, with
a nominal husband, succeeded to the throne; Chrysaphius was
burnt, Dioscorus was disgraced, the exiles were recalled, and the
tome of Leo was subscribed by the Oriental bishops. Yet the pope
was disappointed in his favorite project of a Latin council: he
disdained to preside in the Greek synod, which was speedily
assembled at Nice in Bithynia; his legates required in a
peremptory tone the presence of the emperor; and the weary
fathers were transported to Chalcedon under the immediate eye of
Marcian and the senate of Constantinople. A quarter of a mile
from the Thracian Bosphorus, the church of St. Euphemia was built
on the summit of a gentle though lofty ascent: the triple
structure was celebrated as a prodigy of art, and the boundless
prospect of the land and sea might have raised the mind of a
sectary to the contemplation of the God of the universe. Six
hundred and thirty bishops were ranged in order in the nave of
the church; but the patriarchs of the East were preceded by the
legates, of whom the third was a simple priest; and the place of
honor was reserved for twenty laymen of consular or senatorian
rank. The gospel was ostentatiously displayed in the centre, but
the rule of faith was defined by the Papal and Imperial
ministers, who moderated the thirteen sessions of the council of
Chalcedon. 62 Their partial interposition silenced the
intemperate shouts and execrations, which degraded the episcopal
gravity; but, on the formal accusation of the legates, Dioscorus
was compelled to descend from his throne to the rank of a
criminal, already condemned in the opinion of his judges. The
Orientals, less adverse to Nestorius than to Cyril, accepted the
Romans as their deliverers: Thrace, and Pontus, and Asia, were
exasperated against the murderer of Flavian, and the new
patriarchs of Constantinople and Antioch secured their places by
the sacrifice of their benefactor. The bishops of Palestine,
Macedonia, and Greece, were attached to the faith of Cyril; but
in the face of the synod, in the heat of the battle, the leaders,
with their obsequious train, passed from the right to the left
wing, and decided the victory by this seasonable desertion. Of
the seventeen suffragans who sailed from Alexandria, four were
tempted from their allegiance, and the thirteen, falling
prostrate on the ground, implored the mercy of the council, with
sighs and tears, and a pathetic declaration, that, if they
yielded, they should be massacred, on their return to Egypt, by
the indignant people. A tardy repentance was allowed to expiate
the guilt or error of the accomplices of Dioscorus: but their
sins were accumulated on his head; he neither asked nor hoped for
pardon, and the moderation of those who pleaded for a general
amnesty was drowned in the prevailing cry of victory and revenge.

To save the reputation of his late adherents, some personal
offences were skilfully detected; his rash and illegal
excommunication of the pope, and his contumacious refusal (while
he was detained a prisoner) to attend to the summons of the
synod. Witnesses were introduced to prove the special facts of
his pride, avarice, and cruelty; and the fathers heard with
abhorrence, that the alms of the church were lavished on the
female dancers, that his palace, and even his bath, was open to
the prostitutes of Alexandria, and that the infamous Pansophia,
or Irene, was publicly entertained as the concubine of the
patriarch. 63

62 (return) [ The Acts of the Council of Chalcedon (Concil. tom.
iv. p. 761—2071) comprehend those of Ephesus, (p. 890—1189,)
which again comprise the synod of Constantinople under Flavian,
(p. 930—1072;) and at requires some attention to disengage this
double involution. The whole business of Eutyches, Flavian, and
Dioscorus, is related by Evagrius (l. i. c. 9—12, and l. ii. c.
1, 2, 3, 4,) and Liberatus, (Brev. c. 11, 12, 13, 14.) Once more,
and almost for the last time, I appeal to the diligence of
Tillemont, (Mem. Eccles. tom. xv. p. 479-719.) The annals of
Baronius and Pagi will accompany me much further on my long and
laborious journey.]

63 (return) [ (Concil. tom. iv. p. 1276.) A specimen of the wit
and malice of the people is preserved in the Greek Anthology, (l.
ii. c. 5, p. 188, edit. Wechel,) although the application was
unknown to the editor Brodaeus. The nameless epigrammatist raises
a tolerable pun, by confounding the episcopal salutation of
“Peace be to all!” with the genuine or corrupted name of the
bishop’s concubine: I am ignorant whether the patriarch, who
seems to have been a jealous lover, is the Cimon of a preceding
epigram, was viewed with envy and wonder by Priapus himself.]

For these scandalous offences, Dioscorus was deposed by the
synod, and banished by the emperor; but the purity of his faith
was declared in the presence, and with the tacit approbation, of
the fathers. Their prudence supposed rather than pronounced the
heresy of Eutyches, who was never summoned before their tribunal;
and they sat silent and abashed, when a bold Monophysite casting
at their feet a volume of Cyril, challenged them to anathematize
in his person the doctrine of the saint. If we fairly peruse the
acts of Chalcedon as they are recorded by the orthodox party, 64
we shall find that a great majority of the bishops embraced the
simple unity of Christ; and the ambiguous concession that he was
formed Of or From two natures, might imply either their previous
existence, or their subsequent confusion, or some dangerous
interval between the conception of the man and the assumption of
the God. The Roman theology, more positive and precise, adopted
the term most offensive to the ears of the Egyptians, that Christ
existed In two natures; and this momentous particle 65 (which the
memory, rather than the understanding, must retain) had almost
produced a schism among the Catholic bishops. The tome of Leo had
been respectfully, perhaps sincerely, subscribed; but they
protested, in two successive debates, that it was neither
expedient nor lawful to transgress the sacred landmarks which had
been fixed at Nice, Constantinople, and Ephesus, according to the
rule of Scripture and tradition. At length they yielded to the
importunities of their masters; but their infallible decree,
after it had been ratified with deliberate votes and vehement
acclamations, was overturned in the next session by the
opposition of the legates and their Oriental friends. It was in
vain that a multitude of episcopal voices repeated in chorus,
“The definition of the fathers is orthodox and immutable! The
heretics are now discovered! Anathema to the Nestorians! Let them
depart from the synod! Let them repair to Rome.” 66 The legates
threatened, the emperor was absolute, and a committee of eighteen
bishops prepared a new decree, which was imposed on the reluctant
assembly. In the name of the fourth general council, the Christ
in one person, but in two natures, was announced to the Catholic
world: an invisible line was drawn between the heresy of
Apollinaris and the faith of St. Cyril; and the road to paradise,
a bridge as sharp as a razor, was suspended over the abyss by the
master-hand of the theological artist. During ten centuries of
blindness and servitude, Europe received her religious opinions
from the oracle of the Vatican; and the same doctrine, already
varnished with the rust of antiquity, was admitted without
dispute into the creed of the reformers, who disclaimed the
supremacy of the Roman pontiff. The synod of Chalcedon still
triumphs in the Protestant churches; but the ferment of
controversy has subsided, and the most pious Christians of the
present day are ignorant, or careless, of their own belief
concerning the mystery of the incarnation.

64 (return) [ Those who reverence the infallibility of synods,
may try to ascertain their sense. The leading bishops were
attended by partial or careless scribes, who dispersed their
copies round the world. Our Greek Mss. are sullied with the false
and prescribed reading of (Concil. tom. iii. p. 1460:) the
authentic translation of Pope Leo I. does not seem to have been
executed, and the old Latin versions materially differ from the
present Vulgate, which was revised (A.D. 550) by Rusticus, a
Roman priest, from the best Mss. at Constantinople, (Ducange, C.
P. Christiana, l. iv. p. 151,) a famous monastery of Latins,
Greeks, and Syrians. See Concil. tom. iv. p. 1959—2049, and Pagi,
Critica, tom. ii. p. 326, &c.]

65 (return) [ It is darkly represented in the microscope of
Petavius, (tom. v. l. iii. c. 5;) yet the subtle theologian is
himself afraid—ne quis fortasse supervacaneam, et nimis anxiam
putet hujusmodi vocularum inquisitionem, et ab instituti
theologici gravitate alienam, (p. 124.)]

66 (return) [ (Concil. tom. iv. p. 1449.) Evagrius and Liberatus
present only the placid face of the synod, and discreetly slide
over these embers, suppositos cineri doloso.]

Far different was the temper of the Greeks and Egyptians under
the orthodox reigns of Leo and Marcian. Those pious emperors
enforced with arms and edicts the symbol of their faith; 67 and
it was declared by the conscience or honor of five hundred
bishops, that the decrees of the synod of Chalcedon might be
lawfully supported, even with blood. The Catholics observed with
satisfaction, that the same synod was odious both to the
Nestorians and the Monophysites; 68 but the Nestorians were less
angry, or less powerful, and the East was distracted by the
obstinate and sanguinary zeal of the Monophysites. Jerusalem was
occupied by an army of monks; in the name of the one incarnate
nature, they pillaged, they burnt, they murdered; the sepulchre
of Christ was defiled with blood; and the gates of the city were
guarded in tumultuous rebellion against the troops of the
emperor. After the disgrace and exile of Dioscorus, the Egyptians
still regretted their spiritual father; and detested the
usurpation of his successor, who was introduced by the fathers of
Chalcedon. The throne of Proterius was supported by a guard of
two thousand soldiers: he waged a five years’ war against the
people of Alexandria; and on the first intelligence of the death
of Marcian, he became the victim of their zeal. On the third day
before the festival of Easter, the patriarch was besieged in the
cathedral, and murdered in the baptistery. The remains of his
mangled corpse were delivered to the flames, and his ashes to the
wind; and the deed was inspired by the vision of a pretended
angel: an ambitious monk, who, under the name of Timothy the Cat,
69 succeeded to the place and opinions of Dioscorus. This deadly
superstition was inflamed, on either side, by the principle and
the practice of retaliation: in the pursuit of a metaphysical
quarrel, many thousands 70 were slain, and the Christians of
every degree were deprived of the substantial enjoyments of
social life, and of the invisible gifts of baptism and the holy
communion. Perhaps an extravagant fable of the times may conceal
an allegorical picture of these fanatics, who tortured each other
and themselves. “Under the consulship of Venantius and Celer,”
says a grave bishop, “the people of Alexandria, and all Egypt,
were seized with a strange and diabolical frenzy: great and
small, slaves and freedmen, monks and clergy, the natives of the
land, who opposed the synod of Chalcedon, lost their speech and
reason, barked like dogs, and tore, with their own teeth the
flesh from their hands and arms.” 71

67 (return) [ See, in the Appendix to the Acts of Chalcedon, the
confirmation of the Synod by Marcian, (Concil. tom. iv. p. 1781,
1783;) his letters to the monks of Alexandria, (p. 1791,) of
Mount Sinai, (p. 1793,) of Jerusalem and Palestine, (p. 1798;)
his laws against the Eutychians, (p. 1809, 1811, 1831;) the
correspondence of Leo with the provincial synods on the
revolution of Alexandria, (p. 1835—1930.)]

68 (return) [ Photius (or rather Eulogius of Alexandria)
confesses, in a fine passage, the specious color of this double
charge against Pope Leo and his synod of Chalcedon, (Bibliot.
cod. ccxxv. p. 768.) He waged a double war against the enemies of
the church, and wounded either foe with the darts of his
adversary. Against Nestorius he seemed to introduce Monophysites;
against Eutyches he appeared to countenance the Nestorians. The
apologist claims a charitable interpretation for the saints: if
the same had been extended to the heretics, the sound of the
controversy would have been lost in the air]

69 (return) [ From his nocturnal expeditions. In darkness and
disguise he crept round the cells of the monastery, and whispered
the revelation to his slumbering brethren, (Theodor. Lector. l.
i.)]

70 (return) [ Such is the hyperbolic language of the Henoticon.]

71 (return) [ See the Chronicle of Victor Tunnunensis, in the
Lectiones Antiquae of Canisius, republished by Basnage, tom.
326.]

The disorders of thirty years at length produced the famous
Henoticon 72 of the emperor Zeno, which in his reign, and in that
of Anastasius, was signed by all the bishops of the East, under
the penalty of degradation and exile, if they rejected or
infringed this salutary and fundamental law. The clergy may smile
or groan at the presumption of a layman who defines the articles
of faith; yet if he stoops to the humiliating task, his mind is
less infected by prejudice or interest, and the authority of the
magistrate can only be maintained by the concord of the people.
It is in ecclesiastical story, that Zeno appears least
contemptible; and I am not able to discern any Manichaean or
Eutychian guilt in the generous saying of Anastasius. That it was
unworthy of an emperor to persecute the worshippers of Christ and
the citizens of Rome. The Henoticon was most pleasing to the
Egyptians; yet the smallest blemish has not been described by the
jealous, and even jaundiced eyes of our orthodox schoolmen, and
it accurately represents the Catholic faith of the incarnation,
without adopting or disclaiming the peculiar terms of tenets of
the hostile sects. A solemn anathema is pronounced against
Nestorius and Eutyches; against all heretics by whom Christ is
divided, or confounded, or reduced to a phantom. Without defining
the number or the article of the word nature, the pure system of
St. Cyril, the faith of Nice, Constantinople, and Ephesus, is
respectfully confirmed; but, instead of bowing at the name of the
fourth council, the subject is dismissed by the censure of all
contrary doctrines, if any such have been taught either elsewhere
or at Chalcedon. Under this ambiguous expression, the friends and
the enemies of the last synod might unite in a silent embrace.
The most reasonable Christians acquiesced in this mode of
toleration; but their reason was feeble and inconstant, and their
obedience was despised as timid and servile by the vehement
spirit of their brethren. On a subject which engrossed the
thoughts and discourses of men, it was difficult to preserve an
exact neutrality; a book, a sermon, a prayer, rekindled the flame
of controversy; and the bonds of communion were alternately
broken and renewed by the private animosity of the bishops. The
space between Nestorius and Eutyches was filled by a thousand
shades of language and opinion; the acephali 73 of Egypt, and the
Roman pontiffs, of equal valor, though of unequal strength, may
be found at the two extremities of the theological scale. The
acephali, without a king or a bishop, were separated above three
hundred years from the patriarchs of Alexandria, who had accepted
the communion of Constantinople, without exacting a formal
condemnation of the synod of Chalcedon. For accepting the
communion of Alexandria, without a formal approbation of the same
synod, the patriarchs of Constantinople were anathematized by the
popes. Their inflexible despotism involved the most orthodox of
the Greek churches in this spiritual contagion, denied or doubted
the validity of their sacraments, 74 and fomented, thirty-five
years, the schism of the East and West, till they finally
abolished the memory of four Byzantine pontiffs, who had dared to
oppose the supremacy of St. Peter. 75 Before that period, the
precarious truce of Constantinople and Egypt had been violated by
the zeal of the rival prelates. Macedonius, who was suspected of
the Nestorian heresy, asserted, in disgrace and exile, the synod
of Chalcedon, while the successor of Cyril would have purchased
its overthrow with a bribe of two thousand pounds of gold.

72 (return) [The Henoticon is transcribed by Evagrius, (l. iii.
c. 13,) and translated by Liberatus, (Brev. c. 18.) Pagi
(Critica, tom. ii. p. 411) and (Bibliot. Orient. tom. i. p. 343)
are satisfied that it is free from heresy; but Petavius (Dogmat.
Theolog. tom. v. l. i. c. 13, p. 40) most unaccountably affirms
Chalcedonensem ascivit. An adversary would prove that he had
never read the Henoticon.]

73 (return) [ See Renaudot, (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 123, 131,
145, 195, 247.) They were reconciled by the care of Mark I. (A.D.
799—819;) he promoted their chiefs to the bishoprics of Athribis
and Talba, (perhaps Tava. See D’Anville, p. 82,) and supplied the
sacraments, which had failed for want of an episcopal
ordination.]

74 (return) [ De his quos baptizavit, quos ordinavit Acacius,
majorum traditione confectam et veram, praecipue religiosae
solicitudini congruam praebemus sine difficultate medicinam,
(Galacius, in epist. i. ad Euphemium, Concil. tom. v. 286.) The
offer of a medicine proves the disease, and numbers must have
perished before the arrival of the Roman physician. Tillemont
himself (Mem. Eccles. tom. xvi. p. 372, 642, &c.) is shocked at
the proud, uncharitable temper of the popes; they are now glad,
says he, to invoke St. Flavian of Antioch, St. Elias of
Jerusalem, &c., to whom they refused communion whilst upon earth.
But Cardinal Baronius is firm and hard as the rock of St. Peter.]

75 (return) [ Their names were erased from the diptych of the
church: ex venerabili diptycho, in quo piae memoriae transitum ad
coelum habentium episcoporum vocabula continentur, (Concil. tom.
iv. p. 1846.) This ecclesiastical record was therefore equivalent
to the book of life.]

In the fever of the times, the sense, or rather the sound of a
syllable, was sufficient to disturb the peace of an empire. The
Trisagion 76 (thrice holy,) “Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of
Hosts!” is supposed, by the Greeks, to be the identical hymn
which the angels and cherubim eternally repeat before the throne
of God, and which, about the middle of the fifth century, was
miraculously revealed to the church of Constantinople. The
devotion of Antioch soon added, “who was crucified for us!” and
this grateful address, either to Christ alone, or to the whole
Trinity, may be justified by the rules of theology, and has been
gradually adopted by the Catholics of the East and West. But it
had been imagined by a Monophysite bishop; 77 the gift of an
enemy was at first rejected as a dire and dangerous blasphemy,
and the rash innovation had nearly cost the emperor Anastasius
his throne and his life. 78 The people of Constantinople was
devoid of any rational principles of freedom; but they held, as a
lawful cause of rebellion, the color of a livery in the races, or
the color of a mystery in the schools. The Trisagion, with and
without this obnoxious addition, was chanted in the cathedral by
two adverse choirs, and when their lungs were exhausted, they had
recourse to the more solid arguments of sticks and stones; the
aggressors were punished by the emperor, and defended by the
patriarch; and the crown and mitre were staked on the event of
this momentous quarrel. The streets were instantly crowded with
innumerable swarms of men, women, and children; the legions of
monks, in regular array, marched, and shouted, and fought at
their head, “Christians! this is the day of martyrdom: let us not
desert our spiritual father; anathema to the Manichaean tyrant!
he is unworthy to reign.” Such was the Catholic cry; and the
galleys of Anastasius lay upon their oars before the palace, till
the patriarch had pardoned his penitent, and hushed the waves of
the troubled multitude. The triumph of Macedonius was checked by
a speedy exile; but the zeal of his flock was again exasperated
by the same question, “Whether one of the Trinity had been
crucified?” On this momentous occasion, the blue and green
factions of Constantinople suspended their discord, and the civil
and military powers were annihilated in their presence. The keys
of the city, and the standards of the guards, were deposited in
the forum of Constantine, the principal station and camp of the
faithful. Day and night they were incessantly busied either in
singing hymns to the honor of their God, or in pillaging and
murdering the servants of their prince. The head of his favorite
monk, the friend, as they styled him, of the enemy of the Holy
Trinity, was borne aloft on a spear; and the firebrands, which
had been darted against heretical structures, diffused the
undistinguishing flames over the most orthodox buildings. The
statues of the emperor were broken, and his person was concealed
in a suburb, till, at the end of three days, he dared to implore
the mercy of his subjects. Without his diadem, and in the posture
of a suppliant, Anastasius appeared on the throne of the circus.
The Catholics, before his face, rehearsed their genuine
Trisagion; they exulted in the offer, which he proclaimed by the
voice of a herald, of abdicating the purple; they listened to the
admonition, that, since all could not reign, they should
previously agree in the choice of a sovereign; and they accepted
the blood of two unpopular ministers, whom their master, without
hesitation, condemned to the lions. These furious but transient
seditions were encouraged by the success of Vitalian, who, with
an army of Huns and Bulgarians, for the most part idolaters,
declared himself the champion of the Catholic faith. In this
pious rebellion he depopulated Thrace, besieged Constantinople,
exterminated sixty-five thousand of his fellow-Christians, till
he obtained the recall of the bishops, the satisfaction of the
pope, and the establishment of the council of Chalcedon, an
orthodox treaty, reluctantly signed by the dying Anastasius, and
more faithfully performed by the uncle of Justinian. And such was
the event of the first of the religious wars which have been
waged in the name and by the disciples, of the God of peace. 79

76 (return) [ Petavius (Dogmat. Theolog. tom. v. l. v. c. 2, 3,
4, p. 217-225) and Tillemont (Mem. Eccles. tom. xiv. p. 713, &c.,
799) represent the history and doctrine of the Trisagion. In the
twelve centuries between Isaiah and St. Proculs’s boy, who was
taken up into heaven before the bishop and people of
Constantinople, the song was considerably improved. The boy heard
the angels sing, “Holy God! Holy strong! Holy immortal!”]

77 (return) [ Peter Gnapheus, the fuller, (a trade which he had
exercised in his monastery,) patriarch of Antioch. His tedious
story is discussed in the Annals of Pagi (A.D. 477—490) and a
dissertation of M. de Valois at the end of his Evagrius.]

78 (return) [ The troubles under the reign of Anastasius must be
gathered from the Chronicles of Victor, Marcellinus, and
Theophanes. As the last was not published in the time of
Baronius, his critic Pagi is more copious, as well as more
correct.]

79 (return) [ The general history, from the council of Chalcedon
to the death of Anastasius, may be found in the Breviary of
Liberatus, (c. 14—19,) the iid and iiid books of Evagrius, the
abstract of the two books of Theodore the Reader, the Acts of the
Synods, and the Epistles of the Pope, (Concil. tom. v.) The
series is continued with some disorder in the xvth and xvith
tomes of the Memoires Ecclesiastiques of Tillemont. And here I
must take leave forever of that incomparable guide—whose bigotry
is overbalanced by the merits of erudition, diligence, veracity,
and scrupulous minuteness. He was prevented by death from
completing, as he designed, the vith century of the church and
empire.]