Page:Lesser Eastern Churches.djvu/222

200 less favourably as a compromiser with Monophysism. He began well. As soon as he came to the throne he commanded acceptance of the four councils (Nicæa, Constantinople I, Ephesus, Chalcedon) from all his subjects. Even in Egypt he tried to establish the orthodox faith. When the Monophysite Timothy III died in 538, Justinian insisted on the appointment of a Catholic successor, Paul (538-542). But his wife led him astray. In 523 he had married Theodora. She had been a public dancing lady, and was always a strong Monophysite. The Empress Theodora, who takes a prominent place in our story (she secured a Monophysite hierarchy for Syria; see p. 324), is a very strange figure. Procopius of Cæsarea, the chronicler of the scandals of this time, gives an appalling account of her career; Gibbon accepts this with his usual sneer. Later writers have some doubt as to whether we are to accept all Procopius's foul anecdotes with confidence. In any case, the lady who faces her husband in the mosaics of San Vitale at Ravenna had a career romantic rather than commendable. Perhaps the strangest thing about her is that this ardent Monophysite of not even doubtful reputation is now a saint in the Orthodox Calendar — so easy for princesses is the Byzantine road to heaven.