custom, but derogatory to his dignity, for him to be present at the council. He further claimed to exercise the presidency through his five delegates, but his claim was not admitted, and Anatolius, the new patriarch of Constantinople, was associated with the absent Leo in the office of president. The delegates of Leo protested against Dioscorus being allowed to sit with his brother-patriarchs, considering the very serious imputations under which he lay, and they stated that unless their demands were acceded to, they would withdraw from the council. It should be remarked in passing that the presence and action of Leo's delegates dispose of the objections some theologians and historians have made against the oecumenical character of the synod. Eusebius of Dorylaeum now demanded that his petition against Dioscorus should be read. It was couched in the following striking terms (so Evagr. H. E. ii. 4): "I have been wronged by Dioscorus; the faith has been wronged; the bishop Flavian has been murdered, and, together with myself, unjustly deposed by him. Give directions that my petition is to be read." It was read accordingly. Eusebius is further declared by Evagrius (ii. 2) to have accused Dioscorus to the emperor of having personally inflicted the injuries of which Flavian died. Dioscorus was convicted of having suppressed Leo's letter to Flavian at the "Robber Synod"; he was deposed; the bishops deposed by him—Theodoret and Ibas among them—were reinstated; and Leo's letter to Flavian accepted by the council amid loud shouts of "Peter has spoken by Leo; Cyril and Leo teach alike." Dioscorus was deposed, but permission was given to the Egyptian bishops to defer their subscription to the Acts of the synod until their new patriarch had been consecrated. Eutyches also was condemned. The proceedings of the council were decidedly tumultuous. One day Theodoret was howled down by the Egyptian bishops; the day after Dioscorus met with a similar reception from the Syrian bishops. Some of the laity who were present as representatives of the emperor openly remarked on the unseemliness of such conduct on the part of bishops. The treatment of the venerable Theodoret was especially unseemly. The reason for which he was howled down was his refusal to anathematize Nestorius until he had an opportunity of explaining his position, though this was the position eventually accepted by the Catholic church at large—namely, the rejection at once of the doctrine of two hypostases, and of the doctrine of only one nature, in Christ. It was only in consequence of the emperor's intervention that the reception of Theodoret by the council was secured.
The resolution first proposed to the synod was not adopted, it being considered too favourable to the party of Dioscorus. The Roman delegates threatened to leave the council unless Leo's letter were accepted as an authoritative statement of doctrine. If this were not done, they intimated that the question should be settled at Rome. As many points of importance connected with the relations between the churches of the East and of the West remained unsettled, especially the question of the status of the patriarch of Constantinople, some of the Eastern prelates feared the prolongation of these disputes which would result from the retirement of Leo's representatives. Therefore, though not without many energetic protests, Leo's letter was recognized, at the request of the emperor, and a definition of doctrine in accordance with that letter was drawn up. The synod first recognized the creed put forth at Nicaea (325), and next the enlarged form of it adopted at Constantinople (381). Whether such a creed was actually promulgated at Constantinople has been disputed of late. But much of the evidence existing in 451 has disappeared, and it seems hardly safe to conclude from the silence of contemporary writers that the 630 bishops at Chalcedon had been misinformed on so vital a point. The synod went on to condemn the vain babblings (κενοφωνίας) of those who denied to the Virgin the title of θεοτόκος, as well as those who, on the other hand, affirmed a confusion and mixture (σύγχυσιν καὶ κρᾶσιν) in Christ, under the foolish impression that there could be one nature (consisting) of the Flesh and the Deity in Him, and who, in consequence of (this) confusion, resorted to the amazing suggestion that the divine nature of the Only-begotten was capable of suffering. After having formally accepted Leo's treatise as in conformity with this statement, the decree went on to declare that Jesus Christ was "Perfect in Godhead and Perfect in Manhood, truly God and truly Man; that He was possessed of a reasonable or rather rational (λογικῆς) soul and body, of the same substance (ὁμοούσιον) with the Father according to His Godhead, and of the same substance with us as regards His Manhood"; and that He is "to be recognized as existing in two natures, without confusion, without change, indivisibly, and inseparably (ἀσυγχύτως, ἀτρέπτως, ἀδιαιρέτως, ἀχωρίστως), the distinction of the natures being in no way removed by their union, but rather the speciality (ἰδιότης) of each nature being preserved, coalescing (συντρεχούσης) in one Person (πρόσωπον) and one hypostasis, not divided nor separated into two Persons, but being one and the same Son, and Only-begotten, God the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ." There can be no doubt that the decision thus promulgated was a sound one, and that, as Leo did not fail to remark pertinently more than once, the doctrines condemned at the two councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon pointed out two rocks on which the doctrine of Christ might be shipwrecked. "The Catholic church," he goes on to say, "could not teach the Humanity of Christ apart from His true Divinity, nor His Divinity without His true Humanity" (Letter to Flavian, c. 5). Yet he did not feel compelled, as Dorner observes, to explain "the internal relations of the two natures." That was, and has remained, a mystery which the human intellect has been unable to unravel. All he had to do was to lay down the particular propositions which, when enunciated by too daring theologians, were in plain conflict with the express teaching of God's
