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140 and Eutyches, maintained a silence on the authority of that council, which was considered as equivalent to at least a toleration of its opponents. At one period during the reign of Zeno, the three great patriarchates were held by men of avowedly heretical sentiments; Moggos, or Mongos, at Alexandria, Acacius at Constantinople, and Peter the Fuller at Antioch. Anastasius also, on coming to the throne, made it one of the leading objects of his administration to establish the Monophysite interest, and with such vigorous effect, that most of the oriental prelates gave in their adherence to the dominant heresy; nor was it till the time of Justinian, who attained the imperial dignity in 527, that the down-trodden cause of truth was relieved of its accumulated oppressions. But at that epoch a better clay seemed to have dawned for the church. The advocates for the early faith were once more permitted to defend it openly before its enemies, and the result, as at Constantinople, was the confutation of error. At the fifth general council, the decisions of Chalcedon harmonizing with the three which had preceded it, were solemnly recognised; while peace, in holy unison with truth, once more returned to the majority of the oriental churches.

It was then that the communion since known by the name of Yakóbee, or Jacobites, began to be consolidated from the various sectaries who held to the Monophysite doctrine in Syria, and the countries on the Tigris and Euphrates, This was brought about mainly by the agency of Jacob Zanzala, a monk who had been a zealous disciple of Severus. Jacob is sometimes known by the cognomen of Al Bardai, which was given him, according to D'Herbelot, from the circumstance of his wearing a garment fabricated of a species of stuff, similar to felt, which the Arabs call barda; though others consider it as derived from the name of Bardaa, the city in Armenia