Page:Lesser Eastern Churches.djvu/214

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192
THE LESSER EASTERN CHURCHES

writers (p. 331), gives a long justification of the addition. One of his explanations is that when our Lord was buried three choirs of angels bore his body to the grave; one choir sang "Holy God"; one, "Holy and strong"; one, "Holy and immortal"; then Joseph and Nicodemus added: "who wast crucified for us, have mercy on us."[1]

Peter the Fuller did not reign long. The Emperor, Leo I, was determined not to allow Monophysism anywhere. So after a few months the soldiers received orders to turn him out. Martyrios was not restored; he was weary of the trouble, and had freely resigned the Patriarchate. A certain Julian became Patriarch in 461.[2] There is now an organized and powerful Monophysite party in Egypt, Palestine and Syria; it has adherents at Constantinople.

Leo I (the Emperor) died in 474. He was succeeded by his grandson, Leo II, a child, who died almost at once. Then came Zeno (474-491). Soon after there was a revolution; Zeno fled, and a usurper, Basiliskos (brother-in-law of Leo I), made himself Emperor for a short time (475-476). Basiliskos was the avowed champion of the Monophysite party. Timothy the Cat was his intimate friend. He immediately restored the Cat at Alexandria, and the Fuller at Antioch; he ordered all his subjects to anathematize the Tome of Pope Leo I and the Council of Chalcedon. Five hundred bishops obeyed. Then Zeno came back with an army; Basiliskos was defeated and murdered (476). The situation was again reversed. Salophakiolos was restored at Alexandria; John Kodonatos became Catholic Patriarch of Antioch. But in Egypt the Copts set up Peter Mongos,[3] former archdeacon of Timothy the Cat, as rival Patriarch. At Antioch, Stephen II succeeded John Kodonatos. They murdered him in 479. Then came Stephen III and Kalandion; while all the time Peter the Fuller had the allegiance of the Monophysites, and waited to be

  1. Expositio Liturgiæ, ed. H. Labourt (Corp. Script. Christ. Orient.; Scriptores Syri, ii. Tom. 93), Latin version, pp. 43-45.
  2. Theophanes Confessor: Chronogr. (P.G. cviii. 292); Liberatus: Brev. xviii. (P.L. xlviii. 1026-1030).
  3. Μόγγος, stammerer. Timothy the Cat died just at this time (July 31, 477); cf. Gutschmid: Verzeichnis der Patriarchen v. Alexandrien (in his Kleine Schriften, Leipzig, 1890, ii. p. 453).