wise decision, the fifth œcumenical council disproved the accusations that passionate men had spread among the Westerns touching the evil dispositions of most of its members. At the same time it exposed the pretexts held out by the adversaries of the Council of Chalcedon, for rejecting the decisions of that holy assembly. It thus powerfully contributed to quiet the dissensions.
Vigilius saw he had been wrong in undertaking the defence of a bad doctrine, under pretence of his respect for the Council of Chalcedon. Six months after the closing of the council, he wrote to Eutychius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, acknowledging that he had sinned against charity in separating himself from his brethren. He adds that no one should be ashamed to retract, when he discovers the truth. "Having," he says, "examined the matter of the Three Chapters, I find them condemnable." Then he declares against those who sustain them, and condemns his own writings in their defence. He publishes finally a long memorial to prove that the Three Chapters contained unsound doctrine.[1] He returned to communion with those whom he had previously anathematized, and peace was restored.
The fifth œcumenical council was neither convoked nor presided over by the Bishop of Rome, although he was present in the city where the council was held. The meetings were held not only without him, but against him. Nevertheless, the decision of this council was considered canonical, and the Pope himself, after some objections, arising out of his ignorance of certain facts, submitted to it. The West concurred with the council thus assembled without the Pope and against the Pope, and thus the assembly acquired its œcumenical character.
All the circumstances of this great fact of ecclesias-
- ↑ Labbe's Collection, vol. v.
