CONSTANTINOPLE
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t iiii.il in the royal city; he had originally refused to
I 1 1 1 icipatr in the rondemnation of the Three Chapters
I liri<'f .statcnuMUs of anathema upon Theodore of M' psuestia and liis writings, upon Theodoret of Cyrus and his writings against St. ('yril of Alexandria and tl] Council of Ephesus, and upon the letter written I IV I has of Edessa to Maris, Bishop of Hardaschir in I'.rsia). Later (by his "Judicatum", 11 April, 548) \ iL;ilius had condemned the Three Chapters (the doc- tiiiir in question being really censurable), but he ex- I iissly maintained the authority of the Council of ( h.ilcedon (451) wherein Theodoret and Ibas — but 1 1 1 IT the condemnation of Nestorius — had been re- timed to their places; in the West much discontent .\ IS called forth by this step which seemed a weaken- iiiL,' before the civil power in purely ecclesiastical ill ii tore and an injustice to men long dead and judged li (!od; it was all the more objectionable ;is the W I stern mind had no accurate knowledge of the theo- I'li-^ical situation among the Greeks of that day. In ninsi'quence of this Vigilius had persuaded Justinian III ri'turn the aforesaid papal document and to pro- ( I iiin a truce on all sides until a general council could III called to decide these controversies. Both the 1 Mipcror and the Greek bishops violated this promise III neutrality; the former, in particular, publishing I'l.'il) his famous edict, 'Ofw\oyia ttjs Ttareuis, con- di liming anew the Three Chapters, and refusing to « iilidraw the same.
I'or his dignified protest Vigilius thereupon suffered \,iiious personal indignities at the hands of the civil niilhority and nearly lost Ids life; he retired finally 1 1 . < lialcedon, in the very church of St. Euphemia where the great council had been held, whence he inliunied the Christian world of the state of affairs. Si "III the Oriental bishops sought reconciliation with liiiii, induced him to return to the city, and withdrew III I tliat had hitherto been done against the Three ( luipters; the new patriarch, Eutychius, successor III -\I('nna.s, whose weakness and subserviency were I lie immediate cause of all this violence and confusion, |iiesiTited (6 Jan., 553) his profession of faith to \ luilius and, in union with other Oriental bishops. Hired the calling of a general council under the presi- 1 1 1 1 1 c y of the pope. Vigilius was willing, but proposed 'I it it should be held either m Italy or in Sicily, in iinler to secure the attendance of Western bishops. ill tliis Justinian would not agree, but proposed, iieteail, a kind of commission made up of delegates fi'iiii each of the great patriarchates; Vigilius sug- u' -led that an equal number be chosen from the East iiid the West; but this was not acceptable to the emperor, who thereupon opened the council by his I \Mi authority on the date and in the manner men- 1 II lied above. Vigilius refused to participate, not
!\- on account of the overwhelming proportion of
I iital bishops, but also from fear of violence; more-
1, none of his predecessors had ever taken part
I i-iinally in an Oriental council. To this decision
ill' was faithful, though he expressed his willingness
111 eive an independent judgment on the matters at
i--iie. Eight sessions were held, the result of which
■^ IS the final condemnation of the Three Chapters by
tlie 1(J5 bishops present at the last session (2 June,
".'. in fourteen anathematisms similar to the thir-
previously issued by Justinian.
'■ I the meantime Vigilius had sent to the emperor
'• May) a document known as the first "Constitu- I ' (Mansi, IX, 61-lOG), signed by himself and I en, mostly Western, bishops, in which sixty
• 11 lical propositions of Theodore of Mopsuestia were enridemned, and, in five anathematisms, his ChrLsto- leeical teachings repudiated; it was forbidden, how-
• ' r to condemn his person, or to proceed further in
lemnation of the writings or the person of Theo-
I. or of the letter of Ibas. It seemed indeed,
. ler the circumstances, no easy task to denounce
fittingly the certain errors of the great .\ntiochene
theologian and his followers and yet uphold the repu-
tation and authority of the Council of Cliiilcedon,
which had been content with obtaining the essentials
of submission from all sympathizers with Nestorius,
but for that very reason had never been forgiven by
the Monophysite opponents of Nestorius and his
heresy, who were now in league with the niunerous
enemies of Origen, and until the death (548) of Theo-
dora had enjoyed the support of that influential
einpress.
The decisions of the council were executed with a violence in keeping with its conduct, though the ardently hoped-for reconciliation of the Monophysites did not follow. Vigilius, together with other oppo- nents of the imperial will, as registered by the subser- vient court-prelates, seems to have been banished (Hefele, II, 905), together with the faithful bishops and ecclesiastics of his suite, either to Upper Egypt or to an island in the Propontis. Already in the seventh session of the council Justinian caused the name of Vigilius to be stricken from the diptychs, without prejudice, however, it was said, to com- munion with the Apostolic See. Soon the Roman clergy and people, now freed by Narses from the Gothic yoke, requested the emperor to permit the return of the pope, which Justinian agreed to on condition that Vigilius would recognize the late coun- cil. This Vigilius finally agreed to do, and in two documents (a letter to Eutychius of Constantinople, 8 Dec, 553, and a second " Constitutum " of 23 Feb., 554, probably addressed to the Western episcopate) condemned, at last, the Three Chapters (Mansi, IX, 414-20, 457-88; ef. Hefele, II, 905-11), indepen- dently, however, and without mention of the council. His opposition had never been based on doctrinal grounds but on the decency and opportuneness of the measures proposed, the wrongful imperial violence, and a delicate fear of injury to the authority of the Council of Chalcedon, especially in the West. Here, indeed, despite the additional recognition of it by Pelagius I (555-00), the Fifth General Council only gradually acquired in public opinion an oecumenical character. In Northern Italy the ecclesiastical prov- inces of Milan and Aquileia broke off conununion with the Apostolic See; the former yielding only towards the end of the sixth century, whereas the latter (Aquileia-Grado) protracted its resistance to about 700 (Hefele, op. cit., II, 911-27). (For an ecjuitable appreciation of the conduct of Vigilius see, besides the article Vigilius, the judgment of Bois, in Diet, de thtol. cath., II, 12.38-.39.) The pope was always correct as to the doctrine involved, and yielded, for the sake of peace, only when he was satisfied that there was no fear for the authority of Chalcedon, which he at first, with the entire West, deemed in peril from the machinations of the Monophysites.
The original Greek Acts of the council are lost, but there is extant a very old Latin version, probably contemporary and made for the use of Vigilius, cer- tainly quoted by his successor Pelagius I. The Baluze edition is reprinted in Mansi, "Coll. Cone.", IX, 163 sqq. In the next General Council of Constantinople (680) it was found that the original Acts of the Fifth Council had been tampered with (Hefele, op. cit., II, 855-58) in favour of Monothelism; nor is it certain that in their present shape we have them in their original completeness (ibid., pp. 859-60). This has a bearing on the much disputed question concerning the condemnation of Origenism at this council. Hefele, moved by the antiquity and persistency of the reports of Origen's condemnation, maintains (p. 801) with Cardinal Noris, that in it Origen was con- demned, but only en passant, and that his name in the eleventh anathema is not an interpolation.
The chief sources are the writings of tlie contempor.iry West- ern (African) Facu.ndus of Hermiane, Pro defcns, trium capit.;
