choose, in the presence of the magistrates; and such as were judged proper, should take effect. The meeting was then closed. Another was held, at which canons were enacted; and at the next, Juvenalis and Maximus came to an agreement that Antioch should have for its province the two Phoenicias and Arabia; and Jerusalem, the three Palestines; which was ratified by an interlocution of the magistrates and bishops.

At the ninth meeting, the case of Theodoret was mooted. He anathematized Nestorius, saying, " Anathema to Nestorius, and to him who does not affirm the holy Virgin Mary to be Mother of God, and to him who divides into two Sons the one Son, the only begotten! I have also subscribed the formulary of faith and the epistle of Leo." Upon this he was restored to his see, by an interlocution of all parties.

At another meeting, the case of Ibas was discussed; and the judgment was read which had been passed upon him by Photius, bishop of Tyre, and Eustathius of Berytus; but the vote was deferred to the next meeting.

At the eleventh meeting, when the majority of the bishops had voted that Ibas should be restored to his episcopal rank, others, in rejoinder, said that his accusers were waiting outside, and required that they should be admitted. The proceedings in his case were then read; but when the magistrates ruled, that the transactions at Ephesus respecting Ibas should also be read, the bishops replied, that all the proceedings in the second synod at Ephesus were null, with the exception of the ordination of Maximus of Antioch. On this point, they further requested the emperor to decree that nothing should be valid which had been transacted at Ephesus subsequently to the first synod, over which the sainted Cyril, president of Alexandria, had presided. It was judged right that Ibas should retain his bishopric.

At the next meeting, the case of Bassianus was inquired into, and it was judged fit that he should be removed and Stephen substituted: which measures were formally voted at the following meeting. At the thirteenth, the case was investigated of Eunomius of Nicomedia and Anastasius of Nicæa, who had a dispute about their respective cities. A fourteenth was also held, at which the case of Sabinianus was investigated. Finally, it was decided that the see of Constantinople should rank next after that of Rome.

BOOK III.

CHAP. I.-CHARACTER OF THE EMPEROR ZENO.

ZENO, on becoming, by the death of his son,1 sole emperor, as if entertaining an idea that his power was incomplete without an unrestrained pursuit of every pleasure that presented itself, so far abandoned himself from the first to the solicitations of desire, as to hesitate at nothing of all that is unseemly and illicit; but so thorough was his habitude in such things, that he esteemed it grovelling to practise them in concealment and privacy; but to do it openly, and, as it were, in a conspicuous spot, truly royal and suited to none but an emperor : a notion base and servile; for the emperor is known, not by the circumstances of ordinary sway over others, but by those wherein he rules and sways himself, in guarding against the admission in his own person of whatever is indecorous; and being thus unconquered by loose indulgence, so as to be a living image of virtue for imitation and the instruction of his subjects. But he who lays himself open to the pleasures of sense, is unwittingly becoming a base slave, an unransomed captive, continually passing, like worthless slaves, from the hands of one master to another; inasmuch as pleasures are an unnumbered train of mistresses, linked in endless succession; while the present enjoyment, so far from being lasting, is only the kindler and prelude to another, until a man either banishes the rabble rule of pleasures, becoming thus a sovereign instead of a victim of tyranny; or, continuing a slave to the last, receives the portion of the infernal world.

CHAP. II.-INCURSIONS OF THE BARBARIANS.

IN such a manner, then, had Zeno, from the commencement of his reign, depraved his course of life: while, however, his subjects, both in the East and the West, were greatly distressed; in the one quarter, by the general devastations of the Scenite barbarians; and in Thrace, by the inroads of the Huns, formerly known by the name of the Massagetæ, who crossed the Ister without opposition: while Zeno 1 Viz. Leo II.: see above, book ii. chap. 17.

himself, in barbarian fashion, was making violent seizure on whatever escaped them.1

CHAP. III.-INSURRECTION OF BASILISCUS.- FLIGHT OF ZENO.

BUT on the insurrection of Basiliscus, the brother of Verina-for the disposition of his nearest connexions was hostile, from the universal disgust at his most disgraceful life-he was utterly wanting in courage: for vice is craven and desponding, sufficiently indicating its unmanly spirit by submission to pleasures. Zeno fled with precipitation, and surrendered so great a sovereignty to Basiliscus without a struggle. He was also blockaded in his native district, Isauria,2 having with him his wife Ariadne, who had subsequently fled from her mother, and those parties who still continued loyal to him. Basiliscus, having thus acquired the Roman diadem, and bestowed on his son Marcus the title of Cæsar, adopted measures opposed to those of Zeno and his predecessors.

CHAP. IV.-CIRCULAR OF BASILISCUS.

Ar the instigation of an embassy of certain Alexandrians, Basiliscus summons Timotheus Elurus from his exile, in the eighteenth year of his banishment; at which time Acacius held the episcopate of Constantinople. On his arrival at the imperial city, Timotheus persuades Basiliscus to address circular letters to the bishops in every quarter, and to anathematize the transactions at Chalcedon and the tome of Leo. They were to this effect.

1

Compare the passage in Juvenal, Sat. viii.

"Cum Pansa eripiat, quicquid tibi Natta reliquit.”

2 Zeno having heard of Basiliscus's defection, struck with fear, fled with his wife Ariadne into Isauria, and betook himself to a strong castle, named Ubara: but afterwards, when Basiliscus had sent Hillus and Trocondus with vast forces against him, he went to Tessædes, or rather, as Nicephorus says, to the city Seleucia, which was the chief city of all Isauria. There he was a long while besieged by Hillus and Trocondus. This person was brother to Hillus, and was consul, a. D. 482; but when Hillus had set up for a tyrant, Trocondus, who had been sent by his brother to collect forces, was taken and beheaded.

THE CIRCULAR LETTER OF BASILISCUS.

"The emperor Cæsar Basiliscus, pious, victorious, triumphant, supreme, ever-worshipful Augustus, and Marcus, the most illustrious Cæsar, to Timotheus, archbishop of the great city of the Alexandrians, most reverend and beloved of God. It has ever been our pleasure, that whatever laws have been decreed in behalf of the true and apostolic faith, by those our pious predecessors who have maintained the true service of the blessed and undecaying and life-giving Trinity, should never be inoperative; but we are rather disposed to enounce them as of our own enactment. We, preferring piety and zeal in the cause of our God and Saviour Jesus Christ, who created and has made us glorious, before all diligence in human affairs, and being further convinced that unity among the flocks of Christ is the preservation of ourselves and our subjects, the stout foundation and unshaken bulwark of our empire; being by these considerations moved with godly zeal, and offering to our God and Saviour Jesus Christ the unity of the holy church as the first fruits of our reign, ordain that the basis and settlement of human felicity, namely, the symbol of the three hundred and eighteen holy fathers who were assembled, in concert with the Holy Spirit, at Nicæa, into which both ourselves and all our believing predecessors were baptized; that this alone should have reception and authority with the orthodox people in all the most holy churches of God, as the only formulary of the right faith, and sufficient for the utter destruction of every heresy, and for the complete unity of the holy churches of God; without prejudice, notwithstanding, to the force of the acts of the hundred and fifty holy fathers assembled in this imperial city, in confirmation of the sacred symbol itself, and in condemnation of those who blasphemed against the Holy Ghost; as well as of all that were passed in the metropolitan city of the Ephesians against the impious Nestorius and those who subsequently favoured his opinions. But the proceedings which have disturbed the unity and order of the holy churches of God, and the peace of the whole world, that is to say, the so-called tome of Leo, and all things said and done at Chalcedon in innova1 More literally, shall oblige, or bind, the orthodox people in God's most holy churches.

1

tion upon the before-mentioned holy symbol of the three hundred and eighteen holy fathers, whether by way of definition of faith, or setting forth of symbols, or of interpretation, or instruction, or discourse; we ordain that these shall be anathematized both here and everywhere by the most holy bishops in every church, and shall be committed to the flames whenever they shall be found, inasmuch as it was so enjoined respecting all heretical doctrines by our predecessors, of pious and blessed memory, Constantine,1 and Theodosius the younger; and that, having thus been rendered null, they shall be utterly expelled from the one and only catholic and apostolic orthodox church, as superseding the everlasting and saving definitions of the three hundred and eighteen fathers, and those of the blessed fathers who, by the Holy Spirit, made their decision at Ephesus; that no one, in short, either of the priesthood or laity, shall be allowed to deviate from that most sacred constitution of the holy symbol; and that, together with all the innovations upon the sacred symbol which were enacted at Chalcedon, there be also anathematized the heresy of those who do not confess, that the only begotten Son of God was truly incarnate, and made man of the Holy Spirit and of the holy and ever-virgin Mary, Mother of God, but, according to their strange conceit, either from heaven, or in mere phantasy and seeming and, in short, every heresy, and whatever other innovation, in respect either of thought or language, has been devised in violation of the sacred symbol in any manner or at any time or place. And, inasmuch as it is the special task of kingly providence to furnish to their subjects, with forecasting deliberation, abundant means of security, not only for the present but for future time, we ordain that the most holy bishops in every place shall subscribe to this our sacred circular epistle when exhibited to them, as a distinct declaration that they are indeed ruled by the sacred symbol of the three hundred and eighteen holy fathers alone-which the hundred and fifty holy fathers confirmed; as it was also defined by the most holy fa

1 There is indeed extant a constitution of the emperor Constantine, in which the dogmatical books of Arius are ordered to be burnt. (See Socrates, Eccl. Hist. book i. chap. 9.) But the emperor Basiliscus seems here to mean another law, which had been promulged by Constantine against all heretics in general, part of which is still remaining in Eusebius, in the third book of his Life of Constantine, chap. 64 and 66.

t