Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/150

 1^8 THE DECLINE AND FALL to the place and opinions of Dioscorus. This deadly supersti- tion was inflamed^ on either side, by the principle and the practice of retaliation : in the pursuit of a metaphysical quaiTel, many thousands "' were slain, and the Christians of every degree were deprived of the substantial enjoyments of social life and of the invisible gifts of baptism and the holy communion. Perhaps an extravagant fable of the times may conceal an allegoi'ical picture of these fanatics, who tortured each other and themselves. " Under the consulship of Venantius and Celer,'" says a grave bishop, "the people of Alexandria, and all Fjgypt, were seized with a strange and diabolical frenzy : great and small, slaves and freedmen, monks and clergy, the natives of the land, who o})posed the synod of Chalcedon, lost their speech and reason, barked like dogs, and tore, with their own teeth, the flesh from their hands and arms." ~- The Heno- Thc disordcrs of thirty years at length })roduced the famous ticon of Zeno. tt ~'t r i^t r? i • i • i • ■ i ■ AD. 482 Henoticon "* oi thc emperor Zeno, which m his reign, and in that of Anastasius, v/as signed by all the bishops of the East, under the penalty of degradation and exile, if they rejected or infringed this salutary and fundamental law. The clergy may smile or groan at the presumption of a layman who defines the articles of faith ; '^ yet, if he .stoops to the humiliating task, his mind is less infected by prejudice or interest, and the authority of the magistrate can only be maintained by the concord of the people. It is in ecclesiastical story that Zeno appears least con- temptible ; and I am not able to discern any Manichajan or Eutychian guilt in the generous saying of Anastasius, That it aiirov toi/ a^pa. Such is the hyperbolic language of the Henoticon. ■"2 See the Chronicle of Victor Tunnunensis. in the Lectiones -Antiquas of Canisius, republished by Basnage, torn. i. p. 326. ■'^ The Henoticon is transcribed by Evagrius (1. iii. c. 13), and translated by Liberatus (Brev. c. 18). Pagi (Critica, torn. ii. p. 411) and .sseman (Bibliot. Orient, torn. i. p. 343) are satisfied that it is free from heresy ; but Petavius (Dogmat, Theolog. torn. v. 1. i. c. 13, p. 40) most unaccountably affirms : Chalcedonensem ascivit. .-^n adversary would prove that he had never read the Henoticon. "•^ [The Henotikon was of course drawn up by the able Patriarch Acacius. It is an admir.nble document, and it secured the unity and peace of the Church in the East throughout the reigns of Zeno and .Anastasius. It was based on the doctrines of Nicsea and Ephesus, and practically removed the decisions of Chalcedon. From a secular point of view nothing is clearer than that the Council of Chalcedon was a grave misfortune for the Empire. The statesmanlike Henotikon retrieved the blunder, so far as it was possible ; and the reopening of the question and reinstate- ment of the authority of Chalcedon was one of the most criminal acts of Justinian, — a consequence of his Western policy. Reconciliation with the see of Rome was bought by the disunion of the East.]