the monks;"[1] but Elias was deposed, and his see given to the Eutychian John.[2]
It was not without reason that the Monophysites accused the emperors of introducing the creed of Leo, and the doctrine of two substances, two natures, and two wills, in one person, with all the troubles and dissensions entailed upon it, into the eastern church.[3] The authority of Marcian had first procured the deposition of Dioscorus, and the condemnation of Eutyches, and he and his successors afterwards were the cause of the persecution of their followers. The Monophysites, accordingly, who considered themselves as holding the orthodox faith, that faith which had condemned the heresy of Nestorius, denounced the emperors as innovators and heretics, and stigmatized those, whom fear had induced to accept their form of faith, by the name of Melchites or royalists.[4] Justinian was characterized as the most orthodox, and at the same time the most illiterate of the emperors.[5] Whilst he was defining and dictating a form of faith to his subjects, the offices and dignities of the empire were sold to un-
- ↑ Ην γαρ φιλομοναχος, ει και ὑπο τινων μιαρων παρεσκευαζετο την ορθην εκπολεμησαι πιστιν. Cyril. vit. S. Sabæ, p. 299.
- ↑ Eutychius, tom. ii. pp. 141, 2. Victor, Chron. pp. 337. Cyril. vita S. Sabæ, (in Cotelier, tom. ii.) pp. 295—308.
- ↑ Makrizi, Hist. Copt. p. 59.
- ↑ Niceph. Callist. Hist. Eccl. lib. xviii. c. 52.
- ↑ Ορθοδοχοτατος. ην δε αμαθητος γραμματων, και το δε λεγομενον αναλφαβητος. Suidas in Ιουστινιανος.
