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170 stand that a system which denied our Lord's humanity is intolerable. He was throughout a firm champion of the faith against the new heresy, and he died a martyr for that faith. Meanwhile old Nestorius from his place of exile watched this struggle, saw (not unnaturally) in Flavian the man who would rehabilitate his own ideas, and conceived the struggle between Flavian and Dioscor as merely a repetition of the fight between himself and Cyril.

The man who comes out best in the whole Monophysite controversy is the Pope of Rome. It has often happened in the story of a great heresy that the earthly head of the Church was not the leading champion of her faith. Popes have not always been the greatest theologians of their time. Some other bishop (Athanasius, Cyril, Augustine) has led the attack against the new heresy and the Pope has approved, giving to their side the enormous weight of his authority. But this time it was not so. When Monophysism began the chair of St. Peter was occupied by one of the very greatest of his successors, Leo I, called the Great (440–461). St. Leo was a skilled theologian. We count him one of the chief Latin Fathers of the Church. He was perfectly competent to understand the danger of Eutyches's heresy; throughout the first period of Monophysism (till he died in 461) he is to the Catholic side what Athanasius had been in Arian times.

Domnus of Antioch took up the cause of Theodoret. Meanwhile some of Eutyches' monks went to Alexandria to ensure the support of Dioscor. As long as Theodosius II lived, the court was for the Monophysites. Very likely the Emperor thought that Domnus and Theodoret were trying to revive Nestorianism; and Eutyches had the ear of the Chief Chamberlain Chrysaphios. So Theodosius wrote an angry letter back to Domnus telling him that all Nestorians must be deposed and excommunicated. Eutyches wrote to Pope Leo, warning him against this "Eastern" backsliding into Nestorianism. The Pope answered cautiously, refusing to take any steps till he had heard more of the matter. Then Eusebius of Dorylæum brought the matter up at a meeting