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398 pay tribute. The last raid was one in Isauria in the early part of 680. Peace having been thus secured on the east, the Khan of the Avars and other barbarian rulers sent presents and made treaties with the Emperor.

Meanwhile a theological controversy which seemed likely to cause a division between East and West and facilitate usurpations like that of Mzhezh was demanding the attention of the government. The disaffection of Egypt and the East arising from the Synod of Chalcedon had long been a menace to the Empire and had led to Zeno's attempt to restore union through the Henotikon and the attempt of Justinian to placate the Monophysites by the condemnation of the Three Chapters; but in neither case was permanent success attained. The rapid conquests of the Persians drew the attention of Heraclius to this state of affairs, and led him to try a plan suggested by the patriarch Sergius, himself a Syrian by birth, to whom it had occurred that the Monophysites might accept the expression "two natures" if satisfied that this did not imply two operations. About 618 accordingly Sergius wrote to the Egyptian George Arsas, one of the Paulianist section of the Monophysites, adherents of the patriarch Paul of Antioch, deposed in 578, asking for quotations in support of the doctrine of one operation, and suggesting a union on this basis. Further steps in this direction were however prevented by the Persian occupation of Egypt. In 622 again Heraclius during his Armenian campaign conversed with a Monophysite leader named Paul, to whom he propounded the doctrine of one operation, but without success. He then drew up an edict against Paul, which was sent to Arcadius of Cyprus, in which the doctrine of two operations was condemned. In 626, while in Lazica, he discussed the question with Cyrus, bishop of Phasis, who was doubtful on the point and wrote to Sergius for information. Sergius answered his objections and sent him a copy of a letter of Menas of Constantinople to Pope Vigilius in which one operation was asserted: by this Cyrus seems to have been satisfied. Communication with the East having been restored in 628, Sergius sent the letter of Menas to Theodore, bishop of Faran near Sinai, who expressed his assent. This correspondence and Menas' letter were then sent to the Monophysite Paul at Theodosiopolis.

After the recovery of the East the plan of reconciliation was taken up in earnest. In 630 or 631 Heraclius met the patriarch Athanasius at Hierapolis in Syria and promised him the official patriarchate of Antioch (vacant since 610) if he would accept communion with the Chalcedonians on the basis of the doctrine of one operation; and to this he was ready to consent; but, though some Jacobite monasteries, especially that of Maron in the Lebanon, accepted the union, the patriarch's death wrecked the scheme (631). In 631 the Armenian Catholicus, Ezra, came on the Emperor's invitation to Syria, was