Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/151

OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 129 was unworthy of an emperor to persecute the worshippers of Christ and the citizens of Rome. The Henoticon was most pleasing to the Egyptians ; yet the smallest blemish has not been described by the jealous and even jaundiced eyes of our orthodox schoolmen, and it accurately represents the Catholic faith of the incarnation, without adopting or disclaiming the peculiar terms or tenets of the hostile sects. A solemn anathema is pronounced against Nestorius and Eutyches ; against all heretics by whom Christ is divided, or confounded, or reduced to a phantom. Without defining the number or the article of the word nature, the pure system of St. Cyril, the faith of Nice, Constantinople, and Ejihesus, is respectfully confirmed ; but, instead of bowing at the name of the fourth council, the subject is dismissed by the censure of all contrary doctrines, j/any such have been taught either elsewhere or at Chalcedon. Under this ambiguous expression the friends and the enemicc of the last synod might unite in a silent embrace. The most reason- able Christians acquiesced in this mode of toleration ; but their reason was feeble and inconstant, and their obedience was despised as timid and servile by the vehement spirit of their brethren. On a subject which engrossed the thoughts and dis- courses of men, it was difficult to preserve an exact neutrality ; a book, a sermon, a jjrayer, rekindled the flame of controversy ; and the bonds of communion were alternately broken and re- newed by the private animosity of the bishops. The space between Nestorius and Eutyches was filled by a thousand shades of language and opinion ; the acepha/i "^ of Egypt and the Roman pontiffs, of equal valour though of unequal strength, may be found at the two extremities of the theological scale. The acephali, without a king or a bishop, were separated above three hundred years from the patriarchs of Alexandria, who had accepted the communion of Constantinople, without exact- ing a formal condemnation of the synod of Chalcedon. For accepting the communion of Alexandria, without a formal approbation of the same synod, the patriarchs of Constanti- nople were anathematized by the j)opes. Their inflexible des- potism involved the most orthodox of the Greek churches in this spiritual contagion, denied or doubted the validity of their ■^5 See Renaudot (Hist. Patriarch. Alex. p. 123, 131, 145, 195, 247). They were reconciled by the care of Mark I. (a.D. 799-819) ; he promoted their chiefs to the bishoprics of Athribis and Talba (perhaps Tava ; see d'Anville, p. 82). and supplied the sacraments, which had failed for want of an episcopal ordination. VOL. V. 9