Oriental provinces of the empire. Thus this council, like each of its three predecessors—at Nicæa, Constantinople, and Ephesus—was not only held in the East, but was also almost entirely Oriental in composition. Leo was very desirous to have the council at Rome. But that was not to be. All the councils were summoned by emperors, and it was in the East that the imperial government held supreme sway over the Church. No emperor with any concern for his authority could have consented to the assembly of a general council of the Church at Rome, especially under so important a person as Leo i., who was really much more influential in the West than Marcian himself. Leo was not present; but he exerted a weighty influence on the proceedings of the council. The papal delegates insisted that Dioscurus should not be allowed to sit as a judge in a case where his own conduct was on trial He was condemned, and deposed, and subsequently banished to Gangra in Paphlagonia, where he died three years later (a.d. 454). Although this was on the ground of his misconduct at Ephesus and his having dared to excommunicate "the most holy and most blessed archbishop of Rome," the heresy he had defended was condemned. Having first confirmed the decrees of the three earlier councils, the council of Chalcedon anathematised Nestorianism on the one hand, and Eutychianism on the other. Leo's "Tome," an important doctrinal statement contained in a letter which the pope had addressed to Flavian, was adopted as the standard statement of orthodoxy; and to this was added a minutely discriminating definition of doctrine. The "Tome" is an admirably balanced statement of the Church's position with regard to the unity of the Person and the distinction of the two natures in Christ, and the formula of Chalcedon which accepts and confirms this statement carefully recapitulates the ideas contained therein. It is to be observed that neither document attempts any explanation of the incarnation, nor does either really attempt to resolve the apparent paradox propounded by its definitions. Each is content to define the orthodox position, clearly, unmistak-
