OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE
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under the orthodox reigns of Leo and Marcian. Those pious emperors enforced with arms and edicts the symbol of their faith;[1] and it was declared by the conscience or honour 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;[2] 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,[3] succeeded
- ↑ 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).
- ↑ Photius (or rather Eulogius of Alexandria) confesses in a fine passage the specious colour 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—καταλλήλοις βελεσι τοὺς ἀντιπάλους ἐτίτρωσκε. Against Nestorius he seemed to introduce the συγχυσις of the Monophysites: against Eutyches he appeared to countenance the ὑποστασεων διαφορά of 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.
- ↑ Αἰλουρός 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. [c. 8]). [Timothy the Cat was exiled and another Timothy, supported by the Emperor Leo, succeeded. This Timothy was called Basilikos, his party was the "royal" party; and this is the origin of the name Melchites or royalists (see below, p. 144, n. 112). For these events sec Zacharias of Mytilene, Bk. iv.]
