Page:Early Christianity in Arabia.djvu/127

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IN ARABIA.
115

Constantinople.[1] During the remainder of the reign of Theodosius, in spite of the repeated and earnest solicitations of the Roman pontiff, the decrees of the council of Ephesus were received by the eastern church, but his successor Marcian, and the new empress Pulcheria, were firm friends of Leo and of the religious party which he supported. A new general council of the bishops was summoned, and they assembled in the year 451, in the church of St. Euphemia at Chalcedon, a town in the neighbourhood of Constantinople, the site of which is now occupied by the modern Turkish village of Kadi-keui. The absolute power of the monarch governed the proceedings; the primate of Egypt was obliged to appear before the synod as a criminal, and the reiterated cries of the bishops of Asia, Thrace, and Pontus were, "Out with the murderer Dioscorus; who does not know the deeds of Dioscorus?"[2] Dioscorus pleaded that his proceeding's had been authorised by the eastern bishops—they excused themselves under the plea of having been forced to compliance[3]—he, on the other hand, accused them of

  1. Δικαιοτατα γενοιτο αν εξω της του Θεου εκκλησιας, ὁς τις εν τῳ Χριστῳ την ανθρωπινην, τουτεστι την ἡμετεραν, αρνειται φυσιν. Epist. Leonis ad Archimandritas Constant.—The letters between Leo, Flavian, Pulcheria, &c. on the Eutychian heresy, may be consulted in Cotelier, Eccl. Gr. Monument. tom. i. p. 50, et seq.
  2. Διοσκορον τον φονεα εξω βαλε· Διοσκορου τας πραξεις τις ουκ οιδεν;
  3. Στρατιωται μετα βακλων και ξιφων επεστησαν· και τα βακλα και