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120 miserable man died on the way, at Syracuse ( 555) The bishops of Italy, Illyria, and Africa broke off from Rome because of the action of Vigilius, some of the churches they represented remaining aloof for nearly half a century.

The council of Ephesus in its severe condemnation of Nestorianism had prepared the way for Eutyches, and so for Monophysitism; the council of Chalcedon—acting under the influence of Rome—had condemned Eutychianism and thus apparently rather favoured its opposite, Nestorianism. Now the pendulum swung again. Undoubtedly this second council of Constantinople indicated a partial reaction against the council of Chalcedon, and a partial movement in the direction of Monophysitism. But it had more important issues in consolidating the Eastern Church and the authority of the emperor over it in opposition to the pretensions of Rome and the claims of the pope. This, and not the doctrinal decision, may be taken as the real note of the so-called "Fifth General Council."

On one side the Monophysite position was now advanced a further stage. Eutyches, the originator of the whole movement, had maintained that Christ's body was not as our body; that the transformation of the human nature in its combination with the Divine affected the body as well as the soul. Similarly, Dioscurus had asserted that it would be profane to speak of the blood of Christ as of the same substance with anything merely natural. In the later period Timothy Ælurus had held that Christ's humanity was different from ours. This was going further than Apollinarianism, further than Patripassianism, a long way on towards. But a new quarrel broke out among the Monophysite refugees at Alexandria in regard to this question. It was Julian of Halicarnassus who now especially developed and emphasised the doctrine of the incorruptibility of the body of Christ. He taught that it was insensible to natural passions and weaknesses, in opposition to Severus, the ex-patriarch of Antioch, who maintained that the body of Christ was corruptible up to the resurrection, after which it became incorruptible. Julian contended