The Dogmatic Letter of St. Leo became the symbol of all Catholics throughout this quarrel. It is this which was solemnly accepted by the fathers of Chalcedon when they cried out, "Peter has spoken by Leo" (p. 178). The Pope further says that when Eutyches has withdrawn his error, the old man is to be treated mercifully.
But the last thing Eutyches thought of was to withdraw his error. All the weight of Egypt under its "ecclesiastical Pharaoh" was coming to back up the obstinate monk.
On August 8, 449, Dioscor opened the synod in the great Church of the Theotókos at Ephesus, the same church in which the former council had been held. He had arrived with twenty bishops and a great crowd of parabolani, sturdy fellows armed with clubs, who understood nothing about nature and person, but were going to brain anyone who annoyed their Pharaoh.[1] The Emperor sent Count Elpidius and many soldiers to protect Eutyches. This is, then, the infamous "Robber-Synod"[2] of Ephesus. No synod in all Church history has left such a name for flagrant brutality. Three hundred and sixty bishops attended, many of them creatures of Dioscor. The others afterwards (at Chalcedon) said that they had only agreed with him in a panic at his brutal violence. Dioscor presided[3] and made the synod do all he wished. There was no pretence at a free discussion. The Emperor had commanded the bishops to crush Flavian and restore Eutyches; Dioscor made them do so. The synod lasted two days.[4] On the first day (August 8, 449) Dioscor called for the soldiers; they and the crowd of his parabolani rushed into the church; there followed the scene of wild disorder which gained for this meeting its name of a gang of brigands. Eutyches was declared innocent; his
- ↑ The Parabolani (παραβολάνοι, "exposers of their own life") were a corporation at Alexandria, originally founded to nurse the sick. They became a kind of rowdy bodyguard of the Patriarch and a public danger to peaceful citizens. It was the Parabolani who murdered Hypatia in 415.
- ↑ Latrocinium Ephesinum, σύνοδος ληστρική. It is St. Leo's name for it (Ep. xcv. 2; P.L. liv. 943), which has become its regular title.
- ↑ This was, of course, already an offence against right order. The Papal legates should have presided; see Duchesne, Hist. anc. de l'Église, iii. 415, n. 1, for an explanation of this anomaly.
- ↑ This is the usual theory (Hefele: op. cit. ii. (1) 585; Duchesne: op. cit. 419). But see Leclercq's note (Hefele, loc. cit.).
