Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/175

 OF THE I?MAN EMPIRE 153 II. The history of the Monophysites is less copious and ii. The Jaco- interesting than that of the Nestorians. Under the reigns of Zeno and Anastasius, their artful leaders surprised the ear of the prince, usurped the thrones of the East, and crushed on its native soil the school of the Syrians. The rule of the Mono- physite faith was defined with exquisite discretion by Severus, patriarch of Antioch : he condemned, in the style of the Heno- ticon, the adverse heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches, main- tained against the latter the reality of the body of Christ, and constrained the Greeks to allow that he was a liar who spoke truth. 1-^ But the approximation of ideas could not abate the vehemence of passion ; each party was the more astonished that their blind antagonist could dispute on so trifling a difference ; the tyrant of Syria enforced the belief of his creed, and his reign was polluted with the blood of three hundred and fifty monks, who were slain, not perhaps without provoca- tion or resistance, under the walls of Apamea.^-' The successor a.d. sis of Anastasius replanted the orthodox standard in the East ; Severus fled into Egypt ; and his friend, the eloquent Xenaias,^^*^ who had escaped from the Nestorians of Persia, was suffocated in his exile by the Melchites of Paphlagonia. Fifty-four bishops were swept from their thrones, eight hundred ecclesiastics were cast into prison, i'^' and, notwithstanding the ambiguous favour 1758, a learned and agreeable work. They have drawn from the same source, the Portuguese and Italian narratives ; and the prejudices of the Jesuits are sufficiently corrected by those of the Protestants. '-''oloi' eineZi' (evSariff-q<; is the expression of Thcodore in his treatise of the Incarnation, p. 245, 247, as he is quoted by La Croze (Hist, du Christianisme d'Ethiopie et d'Arm^nie, p. 35), who exclaims, perhaps too hastily, " Quel pitoyable raisonnement ! " Renaudot has touched (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 127-138) the Oriental accounts of Severus ; and Us authentic creed may be found in the epistle of John the Jacobite patriarch of Antioch, in the xth century, to his brother Mennas of Alexandria ( Asseman. Bibliot. Orient, torn. ii. p. 132-141). [A Syriac translation of a Life of Severus by Zacharias of Mytilene is preserved, and was published by J. Spanuth, 1893. On the position of Severus in ecclesiastical history, Cp. J. EuStratiuS, Sturjpo; n Mni'rx/j.icn'Tijs, 1894.] 1-" Epist. Archimandritaruni et Monachorum Syrine Secundae ad Papam Hormis- dam. Concil. torn. v. p. 598-602. The courage of St. Sabas, ut leo animosus, will justify the suspicion that the arms of these monks were not always spiritual or de- fensive (Baronius, A.D. 513, No. 7, &c. ). 1'"' .Assemanni (Bibliot. Orient, tom. ii. p. 10-46) and La Croze (Christianisme d'Ethiopie, p. 36-40) will supply the history of Xenaias, or Philoxenus, bishop of Mabug, or Hierapolis, in Syria. He was a perfect master of the Syriac language, and the author or editor of a version of the New Testament. i-'i The names and titles of fifty-four bishops, who were exiled by Justin, are preserved in the Chronicle of Dionysius (apud .Vsseman. tom. ii. p. 54). Severus was personally summoned to Constantinople — for his trial, says Liberatus (Brev. c. 19) — that his tongue might be cut out, says Evagrius (1. iv. c. 4). The prudent patriarch did not stay to examine the difference. This ecclesiastical revolution is fixed by Pagi to the month of September of the year 518 (Critica, tom. ii. p. 506).