exclaimed, 'Away with Eusebius, burn him, let him be burnt alive! Let him be cut in two—be divided, even as he divided!'" "Can you endure," asked Dioscorus, "to hear of two natures after the incarnation?" "Anathema to him that says it!" was the reply. "I have need of your voices and your hands too," rejoined Dioscorus; "if any one cannot shout, let him stretch out his hand." Another anathema rang out (ib. 737). Another passage, containing a statement of belief by Eutyches, was heard with applause. "We accept this statement," said Dioscorus. "This is the faith of the Fathers," exclaimed the bishops. "of what faith do you say this?" asked Dioscorus. "of Eutyches's: for Eusebius is impious" (ἀσεβής, ib. 740). Similar approbation was given to another passage containing the characteristic formula of Eutychianism: "I confess that our Lord was of two natures before the incarnation; but after the incarnation [i.e. in Him as incarnate] I confess one nature." "We all agree to this," said Dioscorus. "We agree," said the council (ib. 744). Presently came a sentence in which Basil of Seleucia had denounced the denial of two natures after the incarnation as equivalent to the assertion of a commixture and a fusion. This aroused once more the zealots of the Alexandrian party; one bishop sprang forward, shouting, "This upsets the whole church!" The Egyptians and the monks, led by Barsumas, cried out, "Cut him in two, who says two natures! He is a Nestorian!" Basil's nerves gave way; he lost, as he afterwards said, his perceptions, bodily and mental (ib. 636). He began to say that he did not remember whether he had uttered the obnoxious words, but that he had meant to say, "If you do not add the word 'incarnate' to 'nature,' as Cyril did, the phrase 'one nature' implies a fusion." Juvenal asked whether his words had been wrongly reported; he answered helplessly, "I do not recollect" (ib. 748). He seems to have been coerced into a formal retractation of the phrase "two natures"; but he added "hypostases" as explanatory of "natures," and professed to "adore the one nature of the Godhead of the Only-begotten, who was made man and incarnate" (ib. 828). Eutyches declared that the acts of the Constantinopolitan synod had been tampered with. "It is false," said Flavian. "If Flavian," said Dioscorus, "knows anything which supports his opinion, let him put it in writing . . . No one hinders you, and the council knows it." Flavian then said that the acts had been scrutinized, and no falsification had been found in them; that, for himself, he had always glorified God by holding what he then held. Dioscorus called on the bishops to give their verdict as to the theological statements of Eutyches. They acquitted him of all unsoundness, as faithful to Nicene and Ephesian teaching. Domnus expressed regret for having mistakenly condemned him (ib. 836). Basil of Seleucia spoke like the rest. Flavian, of course, was silent. Dioscorus spoke last, affirming the judgments of the council, and "adding his own opinion." Eutyches was "restored" to his presbyterial rank and his abbatial dignity (ib. 861). His monks were then released from the excommunication incurred at Constantinople. The doctrinal decisions of the Ephesian council of 431, in its first and sixth sessions, were then read. Dioscorus proposed that these decisions, with those of Nicaea, should be recognized as an unalterable standard of orthodoxy; that whoever should say or think otherwise, or should unsettle them, should be put under censure. "Let each one of you speak his mind on this. "Several bishops assented. Hilarus, the Roman deacon, testified that the apostolic see reverenced those decisions, and that its letter, if read, would prove this. Dioscorus called in some secretaries, who brought forward a draft sentence of deposition against Flavian and Eusebius, on the ground that the Ephesian council had enacted severe penalties against any who should frame or propose any other creed than the Nicene. Flavian and Eusebius were declared to have constructively committed this offence by "unsettling almost everything, and causing scandal and confusion throughout the churches." Their deposition was decided upon (ib. 907). Onesiphorus, bp. of Iconium, with some others, went up to Dioscorus, clasped his feet and knees, and passionately entreated him not to go to such extremities. "He has done nothing worthy of deposition . . . . if he deserves condemnation, let him be condemned." "It must be," said Dioscorus in answer; "if my tongue were to be cut out for it, I would still say so. "They persisted, and he, starting from his throne, stood up on the footstool and exclaimed, "Are you getting up a sedition? Where are the counts?" Military officers, soldiers with swords and sticks, even the proconsul with chains, entered at his call. He peremptorily commanded the bishops to sign the sentence, and with a fierce gesture of the hand exclaimed, "He that does not choose to sign must reckon with me." A scene of terrorism followed. Those prelates who were reluctant to take part in the deposition were threatened with exile, beaten by the soldiers, denounced as heretics by the partisans of Dioscorus, and by the crowd of fanatical monks (ib. vii. 68) who accompanied Barsumas, until they put their names to a blank paper on which the sentence was to be written (ib. vi. 601 seq. 625, 637, 988). They afterwards protested that they had signed under compulsion. Basil of Seleucia declared that he had given way because he was "given over to the judgment of 120 or 130 bishops; had he been dealing with magistrates, he would have suffered martyrdom." "The Egyptians," says Tillemont, "who signed willingly enough, did so after the others had been made to sign" (xv. 571; cf. Mansi, vi. 601).
Flavian's own fate was the special tragedy of the Latrocinium. He had lodged in the hands of the Roman delegates a formal appeal to the pope and the Western bishops (not to the pope alone; see Leo, Ep. 43, Tillemont, xv. 374). It was nearly his last act. He was brutally treated, kicked, and beaten by the agents of Dioscorus, and even, we are told, by Dioscorus himself (see Evagr. i. 1; Niceph. xiv. 47). He was then imprisoned, and soon exiled, but died in the hands of his guards, from the effect of his injuries, three days after his deposition (Liberatus, Brev. 19), Aug. 11,
