her hand, with a share in the empire, to a brave soldier named Marcianus.

The hopes of one party, and the apprehensions of the other, were realised with the utmost rapidity. The first act of the Government, which Anatolius, the new bishop, who, though nominated by the Egyptian party, was a moderate prudent man, either acquiesced in or promoted, was the quiet removal of Eutyches from the city. This measure was confirmed by a synod at Constantinople.

A more full and authoritative Council could alone repeal the acts of the "Robber Synod" of Ephesus. The only opposition to the summons of such Council at Chalcedon arose from Leo. The Roman Pontiff had urged on the Western Emperor (it is said, on his knees) the necessity for a general Council. But Leo desired a Council in Italy, where no one could dispute the presidency of the Roman prelate. Prescient, it might seem, of the decree at Chalcedon, which raised the Patriarch of Constantinople to an equality with the Bishop of Rome, he dreaded the convocation of a Council in the precincts and under the immediate influence of the Byzantine court.

Oct. 8, A.D.

At Chalcedon, the Asiatic suburb of Constantinople, met that assembly, which has been admitted to council of rank as the fourth, by some as the last, of the Chalcedon. great Ecumenic Councils. Anatolius, Bishop of 451. Constantinople, was present, with Macrianus of Antioch, and Juvenalis of Jerusalem. Leo appointed as his representatives two bishops and a presbyter. Above five

hundred bishops' made their appearance. Dioscorus of Alexandria was there, but sate not in the order of his rank, and was not allowed the right of suffrage. Theodoret of Cyrus claimed his seat, but did not obtain it without violent resistance from the Egyptian faction, who denounced him as a Nestorian: his own party retorted. the charge against the Egyptians, as persecutors of Flavianus, and as Manicheans. The Imperial Commissioners

e Paschasinus, Bishop of Lilybæum, Lucentius, Bishop of Esculanum (Ascoli), Boniface, Presbyter of the Church of Rome.

This is the number in the Breviar.

Marcellinus raises the number to six hundred and thirty. Between four and five hundred signatures are appended to the acts.

reproved with firmness, and repressed with dignity, but with much difficulty, these rabble-like proceedings.

Oct. 10.

The first act of the Council, after the proceedings of the Synod at Ephesus had been read, was to annul the articles of deposition against Flavianus and Eusebius. Many of the bishops expressed their penitence at their concurrence in these acts: some saying that they were compelled by force to subscribe-others to subscribe a blank paper. The Council proceeded to frame a resolution, deposing Dioscorus and five other bishops, as having iniquitously exercised undue influence in the Council of Ephesus. But the right of approbation of this decree was reserved to the Emperor. During the whole of this first session, Dioscorus had confronted his adversaries with the utmost intrepidity, readiness, and self-command. He cried aloud, "They are condemning not me alone, but Athanasius and Cyril. They forbid us to assert the two natures after the incarnation." The night drew on; Dioscorus demanded an adjournment; the Senate refused; the acts were read over by torchlight. The bishops of Illyria proclaimed their abandonment of the cause of Dioscorus. The night was disturbed by wild cries of acclamation to the Emperor and the Senate, appeals to God, anathema to Dioscorus-"Christ has deposed Dioscorus-Christ has deposed the murdererGod has avenged his martyrs!" The Council at the next session proceeded to the definition of the true faith. The Creeds of Nicea and of Constantinople, the two Epistles of Cyril, and above all the Epistle of Leo to Flavianus, were recognised as containing the orthodox Christian doctrine. The letter of Leo excited acclamations of unbounded joy. "This is the belief of the Fathers, of the Apostles!" "So believe we all!" "Accursed be he that admits not that Peter has spoken by the mouth of Leo!" "Leo has taught what is righteous and true; and so taught Cyril!" "Eternal be the memory of Cyril!" "Why was not this read at Ephesus? It was suppressed by Dioscorus!" With this

It is said in the Breviar. Hist. Eu- present. The Senate appears in the tych. that the Emperor and Senate were acts.

there was again a strange mingled outcry of the Bishops, confessing their sin and imploring forgiveness, and of the adversaries of Dioscorus, chiefly the clergy of Constantinople, clamouring, " Away with the Egyptian, the Egyptian into exile!"

tion of Dios

The Imperial Commissioners, who, with some few of the Bishops, were anxious that affairs should proceed with more dignified calmness, hardly restrained the impulse of the Council, who were eager to proceed by acclamation, and at once, to the condemnation of Dioscorus; they accused him of being a Jew. It would, perhaps, have been better for that prelate, if they had been permitted to follow their impulse. For charges now began to multiply and to darken against the falling Patriarch- Condemna charges of disloyalty, of tyranny, of rapacity, of corus. incontinence. Thrice was he summoned to appear (he had not been permitted to resume his seat, or had withdrawn during the stormy course of the proceedings), thrice he disobeyed, or attempted to elude the summons. The solemn sentence was then pronounced by one of the Western Bishops, the representatives of Leo. It stated that Dioscorus, sometime Bishop of Alexandria, had been found guilty of divers ecclesiastical offences. To pass over many, he had admitted Eutyches, a man under excommunication by lawful authority, into communion; he had haughtily repelled all remonstrances; he had refused to read the Epistle of Leo at the Council of Ephesus; he had even aggravated his guilt, by daring to place the Bishop of Rome himself under interdict." Leo, Oct. 13. therefore, by their voice, and with the authority of the Council, in the name of the Apostle Peter, the Rock and Foundation of the Church, deposes Dioscorus from his episcopal dignity, and excludes him from all Christian rights and privileges. The unanimous Council subscribes the judgment.'

h Page 424.

i It is remarkable that the decree took no notice of the various imputations of heresy against Dioscorus, none of the accusations of murder said to have been perpetrated by him in Alexandria. Com

pare especially the libel of Ischyrion the Deacon, who offers to substantiate his charges by witnesses. Either Dioscorus was one of the most wicked of men, or Ischyrion the most audacious of calumniators.-Labbe, p. 398-400.

Barsumas the monk.

The decree was temperate and dignified; it contained no unfair or exaggerated accusations; though it might dwell with undue weight on the insulting conduct towards Leo, it condescended to no fierce and abusive appellations. Nor was the grave majesty of the assembly disturbed by a desperate rally of the monks, headed by Barsumas. This man, as not unjustly supposed of being implicated in the death of Flavianus, the assembly refused to admit to the honours of a seat. Repelled on all sides, and awed by the Imperial power, the monks appealed to Christ from Cæsar, shook their garments in contempt of the Council, and as a protest against the injustice done to Dioscorus; and then sullenly retired to their solitudes to brood over and propagate in secret their Monophysite doctrines. Some of their traditions assert, in characteristic language, that Barsumas, thus ignominiously expelled by the Council and by the Emperor, pronounced his curse against Pulcheria. She died a few days afterwards, and Barsumas, while he took rank among his followers as a prophet and man of God, became from that time an object of cruel and unrelenting persecution by

his enemies.

It is remarkable that the formulary of faith adopted finally by the Council of Chalcedon was brought forward by the Imperial Commissioners. After much altercation and delay, it received at length the sanction of the Council. After this the Civil Government (the Emperor Marcian) issued two laws, addressed to all orders, to the clergy, to the military, and to the commonalty; one prohibited the future agitation of these questions, as tending to tumult: it denounced as the penalty for offences against the statute, degradation to the ecclesiastic; to the soldier ignominious expulsion from the army; to the common man exile from the Imperial city.* The second decree confirmed all the proceedings at Chalcedon, enforced on the public mind the deferential conclusion, that no private man could hope to arrive at a sounder understanding of these mysteries

k A strong canon of the Council of Chalcedon against simony implies that

the benefices in the East, as in the West, were highly lucrative.

than had been painfully attained by so many holy bishops, and only after much prayer and profound investigation. The punishment of dissent was left indefinite and at the will of the civil rulers.

But before the final dissolution of the Council at Chalcedon, among thirty canons on ecclesiastical subjects, appeared one of singular importance to Christendom. It asserted the supremacy of the Roman See, not in right of its descent from St. Peter, but solely as the Bishopric of the Imperial City. It assigned, therefore, to the Bishop of the New Rome, as equal in civil dignity, a co-equal and co-ordinate ecclesiastical authority." This canon, it is averred, was passed by a few bishops, who lingered behind the rest of the Council; it claims only the subscription of one hundred and fifty prelates, and those chiefly of the diocese of Constantinople. It is not indeed likely that the Alexandrian Church, though depressed by the ignominious degradation of its head, still less that the more ancient Churches of Antioch and Jerusalem should thus tamely acquiesce in the assumption of superiority (unless it were a measure enforced by the Imperial power) by the modern and un-Apostolic Church of Byzantium." Leo from this period denounces the arrogance and presumption of Anatolius, the Bishop of Constantinople; and this canon of the Ecumenic Council has been refused all validity in the West.

Throughout this long and melancholy ecclesiastical civil war, the Bishop of Rome could not but continue to rise in estimation and reverence, and in their inseparable result, authority. While the East had thus been distracted in every province, the West had enjoyed almost profound religious peace. The circumstances of the time contributed to this state of things; the pre-occupation of the whole Western empire by the terrors of the most formidable in

* Καὶ γὰρ τῷ θρονῷ τῆς πρεσβυτέρας Ρώμης, διὰ τὸ βασιλεύειν τὴν πόλιν ἐκείνην, οἱ πάτερες sixórws áxodidánnos và xgroßía.-Can. xxviii. p. 769.

"Leo, in his three epistles on the subject, seems to espouse the cause of Antioch and Alexandria, as insulted by their degradation from the second and third rank; rivalry with Rome on their part is a pretension of which he will not condescend to entertain a suspicion.

"Tanquam opportunè se tempus hoc tibi obtulerit, quo secundi honoris privilegium sedes Alexandrina perdiderit, et Antiochena Ecclesia proprietatem tertiæ dignitatis amiserit, ut his locis juri tuo subditis, Metropolitani Episcopi proprio honore priventur."-Epist. liii.: ad Anatol. Const. Episc. The Bishop of Rome rebukes the ambition of his brother prelate in the words of St. Paul, "Be not high-minded, but fear !!"