wish him to allow the names of condemned heretics and their successors to be recited in the sacred diptychs? Euphemius professed to reject Eutyches; let him reject also those who have communicated with the successors of Eutyches. Was it not even worse for Acacius to know the truth and yet communicate with its enemies? The condemnation of Acacius was ipso facto according to the decrees of ancient councils. If Peter Mongus did purge himself, why did not Euphemius send proofs of it? He is much vexed with Euphemius for saying that he is constrained to do things which he does not wish; no bishop should talk so about that truth for which he ought to lay down his life. He refuses to send a mission to Constantinople, for it is the pastor's duty to convince his own flock. At the tribunal of Jesus Christ it will be seen which of the two is bitter and hard. The high spirit of the orthodox patriarch was fired by this dictatorial interference. He even thought of summoning the pope himself to account; and as Gelasius was certainly even more suspicious of the emperor Anastasius, who was, despite the recantation which Euphemius had enforced, a real Eutychian at heart, it is very likely that, as Baronius asserts, the patriarch did not attempt to conceal the pope's antipathy to the emperor.
Nothing cooled the zeal of Euphemius for the council of Chalcedon. Anastasius harboured designs against its supporters; the patriarch gathered together the bishops who were at Constantinople, and invited them to confirm its decrees. According to Theophanes and Victor of Tunis, this occurred in 492 (Vict. Tun. Chron. p. 5); but in Mansi (vii. 1180) the event is placed at the beginning of the patriarchate of Euphemius, and the decrees are said to have been sent by the bishops to pope Felix III. Various jars shewed the continued rupture with Rome. Theodoric had become master of Italy, and in 493 sent Faustus and Irenaeus to the emperor Anastasius to ask to peace. During their sojourn at Constantinople the envoys received complaints from the Greeks against the Roman church, which they reported to the pope. Euphemius urged that the condemnation of Acacius by one prelate only was invalid; to excommunicate a metropolitan of Constantinople a general council was necessary (ib. viii. 16). Now occurred that imprudence which unhappily cost Euphemius his throne. Anastasius, tired of war against the Isaurians, was seeking an honourable way of stopping it. He asked Euphemius in confidence to beg the bishops at Constantinople (there were always bishops coming and going to and from the metropolis) to pray for peace and thus furnish him with an opportunity of entering on negotiations. Euphemius betrayed the secret to John the patrician, father-in-law of Athenodorus, one of the chiefs of the Isaurians. John hurried to the emperor to inform him of the patriarch's indiscretion. Anastasius was deeply offended, and thenceforth never ceased to persecute his old opponent. He accused him of helping the Isaurians against him, and of corresponding with them (Theoph. Chronog. a.d. 488). An assassin, either by Anastasius's own order or to gain his favour, drew his sword on Euphemius at the door of the sacristy, but was struck down by an attendant.
Anastasius sought other means to get rid of Euphemius. Theodorus speaks of the violence with which he demanded back the profession of faith on which his coronation had depended (Theod. Lect. ii. 8, 572 seq. in Patr. Gk. lxxxvi.). He assembled the bishops who were in the capital and preferred charges against their metropolitan, whom they obsequiously declared excommunicated and deposed. The people loyally refused to surrender him, but had soon to yield to the emperor.
Meanwhile Euphemius, fearing for his life, retired to the baptistery, and refused to go out until Macedonius had promised on the word of the emperor that no violence should be done him when they conducted him to exile. With a proper feeling of respect for the fallen greatness and unconquerable dignity of his predecessor, Macedonius, on coming to find him in the baptistery, made the attendant deacon take off the newly-given pallium and clothed himself in the dress of a simple presbyter, "not daring to wear" his insignia before their canonical owner. After some conversation, Macedonius (himself to follow Euphemius to the very same place of exile under the same emperor) handed to him the proceeds of a loan he had raised for his expenses. Euphemius was taken to Eucaïtes in 495, the fifth year of Anastasius. His death occurred 20 years later at Ancyra, whither, it is thought, the Hunnish invasion had made him retire. Elias, metropolitan of Jerusalem, himself afterwards expelled from his see by Anastasius, stood stoutly by Euphemius at the time of his exile, declaring against the legality of his sentence (Cyrillus, Vita S. Sabae, c. 69, apud Sur. t. vi.). In the East Euphemius was always honoured as the defender of the Catholic faith and of Chalcedon, and as a man of the highest holiness and orthodoxy. Great efforts were made at the fifth general council to get his name put solemnly back in the diptychs (Mansi, viii. 1061 E). The authorities for his Life are, Marcel. Chron. a.d. 491-495 in Patr. Lat. li. p. 933; Theod. Lect. Eccl. Hist. ii. 6-15 in Patr. Gk. lxxxvi. pt. i. 185-189; Theoph. Chronog. a.d. 481-489 in Patr. Gk. cviii. 324-337; St. Niceph. Constant. Chronog. Brev. 45 in Patr. Gk. c. p. 1046; Baronius, a.d. 489-495; Gelas. Pap. Ep. et Decret. i. in Patr. Lat. lix. 13.
[W.M.S.]
Euprepius (4), bp. of Bizya in Thrace; one of 68 bishops who demanded that the opening of the council of Ephesus should be postponed until the arrival of John of Antioch. He signed on this occasion also for Fritilas bp. of Heraclea (Synod. adv. Tragoed. cap. 7, in Theod. Opp. t. v. in Patr. Gk. lxxxiv. 591). He nevertheless attended the council when it opened, signed the sentence against Nestorius and the "decretum de fide" (Mansi, iv. 1225 C, 1364 E). Euprepius is chiefly of interest from the memorial termed "Supplex libellus," which he and Cyril, bp. of Coele in the same province, jointly addressed to the fathers of the council (ib. 1478), stating that by an ancient custom in the European provinces a bishop sometimes had more bishoprics than one under his charge; that Euprepius was then administering the see of Arcadiopolis
