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 named, and Barsumas to insist on something which approached very near to the absorption of the Manhood by the Godhead of Christ. Theodoret came forward once more (447) with his Eranistes (contributor to a club repast), a work in which he contended that the Logos was ἄτρεπτος (unchangeable), ἀσυγχύτος (i.e. His two natures were incapable of being confounded), and ἀπαθής (i.e. the Godhead was incapable of suffering). Dioscorus next wrote to the patriarch of Antioch accusing Theodoret of Nestorianism; and when Theodoret defended himself with temper and moderation, pointing out that he had condemned those who had denounced the term θεοτόκος and divided the Person of Christ, and appealing to the authority of Alexander, Athanasius, Basil, and Gregory, Dioscorus encouraged his monks to anathematize Theodoret openly in the church (448). By imperial decree Theodoret was ordered to keep in his own diocese, and not to cause synods to be summoned at Antioch or elsewhere. Just then a synod was held at Constantinople (448), under the patriarch Flavian (who had lately succeeded Proclus, and who is sometimes confounded with Flavian of Antioch, who died c. 408), for the dispatch of general business, and Eusebius, bp. of Dorylaeum in Phrygia, brought a complaint against the abbot Eutyches as a disturber of the public peace. Flavian bade him visit Eutyches; for Eutyches, like Dalmatius, had gained great credit for piety by never leaving his cell. Eusebius declined to do this, and Eutyches, when summoned, refused to come forth. When he found that he was about to be condemned for contumacy, he came forth, but brought a large assembly of monks, notables, and even soldiers in his train. By this means he secured a safe return to his monastery, but his adversaries continued to attack him, and to charge him with calling Christ's Body God's Body, and with asserting that It was not ὁμοούσιον with other bodies. When questioned, he denied that our Lord possessed two natures after His Incarnation. He was therefore deposed and excommunicated. The party of Eutyches had recourse to court intrigue, and the empress Eudocia contrived to deprive her sister-in-law Pulcheria, who favoured Flavian, of all her influence with the emperor. Eutyches next demanded a new trial, but though the emperor granted his request, Flavian refused to revise the sentence. Eutyches then, relying on the support of Dioscorus and the emperor, and also of Leo of Rome, whose predecessor had condemned Nestorius, appealed to an oecumenical council. But he tried to secure his safety by declaring his willingness to confess the two natures intheone Christ, if Dioscorus and Leo of Rome should require it. Flavian wished the matter to remain as it had been settled at Constantinople, but he was overruled, and a synod called together at Ephesus in 449.

Of this synod Dioscorus, not Flavian, was appointed president, and Flavian was present rather as an accused person than as a judge. The violence displayed at it by Dioscorus and his party caused it to be universally rejected by the Catholic church. It obtained the name of the Synod of Brigands, or Robber Synod (Latrocinium), which it has ever since retained. By trickery and tumult the bishops were forced to declare that there was but one nature in Christ, and the patriarch Flavian was so roughly handled at the council that he died shortly after of the injuries he had received. Flavian and Eusebius of Dorylaeum were deposed. Domnus of Antioch yielded to the clamour, in spite of the warnings of Theodoret,but he also was afterwards deposed. Theodoret was exiled to the monastery in which he had been brought up. For fuller details of this synod see ;. Within a few months, however, the situation underwent a great change. Theodosius died (450), and was succeeded by Marcian. The new emperor had previously espoused Pulcheria, who had contrived to regain her influence over the deceased emperor before his death, and who had already honoured the remains of the martyred patriarch Flavian with a public funeral. The bishops who had disgraced themselves by their craven submission to the decrees of the "Robber Synod"—"chameleons," as Theodoret calls them—now further disgraced themselves by as sudden a recantation. Leo, who had sent four representatives to Ephesus, had by this time learned from them the true history of the proceedings there. One of them, Hilary the deacon, had made a formal protest against these proceedings. Hilary had also taken with him from Ephesus the appeal of Flavian for a rehearing of the case in Italy. Leo now determined, if possible, to decide the question himself. As in the Arian, so in the Nestorian and Monophysite controversies, the West displayed a marked capacity for seizing on the salient points of the question at issue, which the Easterns often failed to grasp in consequence of their taste for metaphysical subtleties. Leo himself was a man "of strong character, undaunted courage, and clear, practical understanding," though "more skilled in liturgical than in theological questions" (Dorner). He was also by no means averse from making these controversies a means for increasing the prestige of his see. Socrates (H. E. vii. 7, 12) has remarked on the use which the patriarchs of Rome and Alexandria alike were making at this period of all opportunities of adding to their secular importance. Accordingly Leo held several synods at Rome in which the decrees of the "Robber Synod" were rejected. And even before the assembling of that synod he had written his celebrated letter to Flavian which, though suppressed at Ephesus, was afterwards read at Chalcedon, and accepted as an accurate statement of the doctrine handed down from the first in the church. He now made use of Flavian's appeal to him to procure the assembling of a council at Rome. But the emperor was too politic to permit this, and sent out letters for a council to be held at Nicaea. Such serious riots, however, broke out there that the emperor ultimately resolved to assemble it at Chalcedon, on the opposite side of the Bosphorus to Constantinople, where he could more easily prevent disturbances. There 630 bishops assembled. Leo now pretended that it was not only contrary to ecclesiastical