Page:Early Christianity in Arabia.djvu/131

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IN ARABIA.
119

The Syrian monks were ever ready to use the weapons of the flesh; the holy city of Jerusalem was occupied by a tumultuous mob, and the Monophysite doctrines were spread by Barsumas in Armenia and Mesopotamia. Such of the Egyptian bishops as were favourable to the synod of Chalcedon were obliged to be held in their sees by force. Proterius, who was placed by the emperor in the chair of Dioscorus, was safe only in the protection of his numerous guard; on the emperor's death he was massacred by the people of Alexandria, and Timothy Ælurus, or the Cat, his murderer, substituted in his place.[1] After years of tumult and disorder, when the bitterness of religious warfare was mitigated by the Henoticum of Zeno, Petrus Moggus, the patriarch of Alexandria, and Petrus Gnapheus, the patriarch of Antioch, were at the head of the Monophysite sect.[2]

    and spirits cast down from heaven have assembled." Asseman. Bibl. Orient. tom. i. p. 295.

  1. Theodorus Lector. Renaudot. Victor, Chron. pp. 322, 4.
  2. Evagrius, lib. 2, 3; Liberatus, cc. 14—19; may be consulted for a general history of the troubles in Egypt. The Henoticum was violently opposed by the Romans. Zenon imperator, Eutychiani poculo erroris sopitus, Acatium Constantinopolit. episcopum damnatoribus synodi Chalcedonensis Petro Alexandrino et Petro Antiocheno episcopis, per Henoticum a se prolatum socians, eorum communione polluitur, et cum eis a Catholica fide recedit. — Victor, Chron. p. 321. The three primates of the east, Peter of Alexandria, Peter of Antioch, and Acatius of Constantinople, were included in the anathemas of Leo. Ib. pp. 321, 5.