the evils of the churches. Simplicius replied, that under God, the Emperor only could remedy them; and advised that he should issue a decree exiling Timothy, and John of Antioch, who had supplanted Peter the heretic and was no better than he had been; in a word, all the heretical bishops opposed to the Council of Chalcedon.
It is noteworthy that if the universal and absolute authority of the Bishop of Rome, now ascribed to him, had been recognized at that time, he would not have needed imperial intervention to reëstablish order and respect for the laws in the churches. The usurpers of bishoprics and the deposed bishops could not have had so numerous partisans.
Simplicius invoked the good offices of Acacius with Zeno in order to obtain the decree he desired, and to cause those to be excommunicated who were to be exiled. The Emperor issued the decree that Simplicius and Acacius asked for, and convoked a council of Eastern bishops, who excommunicated the heretical bishops, and particularly Peter and John, the usurpers of the see of Antioch, and Timothy of that of Alexandria. The council wrote to Simplicius praying him not to receive into his communion any of those who had been condemned. Then Simplicius, on his part, excommunicated them, and gave Acacius notice of his sentence, entreating him at the same time to solicit from the Emperor the execution of the decree of proscription.
Timothy Ælurus, already feeble through age and infirmity, was permitted to die at Alexandria. After his death, his supporters elected Peter, surnamed Mongus, or "the Hoarse;" but the Emperor Zeno had him driven away, and reëstablished in the chair of Alexandria Timothy Salofaciolus, who had been unjustly expelled.[1] The
- ↑ The Roman court is now so little acquainted with these facts, that in a work published by it against the Eastern Church, over the name of Mr. Pitzipios, it makes Peter the Hoarse a Patriarch of Antioch. See Part I. ch. 2.
