INTRODUCTION.

Flavian, complaining of being kept in ignorance, and prima facie original: "at first sight" of Eutyches’ treatment. Meanwhile, the delayed epistle arrived from Flavian, and the account given was enough to satisfy Leo, who thereupon (May 449) replied briefly, expressing his approval and promising a fuller treatment of the question. This promise was fulfilled next month in the shape of the world-famous “Tome,” which forms Letter XXVIII in the Leonine collection. The proper significance of this document is well expressed by Mr. Gore: it is, he says, “still more remarkable for its contents than for the circumstances which produced it,” though “in itself it is a sign of the times: for here we have a Latin bishop, ignorant of Greek, defining the faith for Greek-speaking bishops, in view of certain false opinions of Oriental origin.” Without reviewing in detail the further correspondence that Leo carried on with the various civil and ecclesiastical authorities at Constantinople (among them being the influential and orthodox Pulcheria, the Emperor’s sister), we pass on to the events connected with the second council of Ephesus. Through the influence of Chrysaphius, as we have already seen, the Emperor was all along on the side of Eutyches, and it was apparently at his instigation and in spite of Leo’s guarded dissuasion that the council was now convened and met in August 449. The bishop of Rome excused himself from personal attendance on the score of pressing business at home and sent three legates with instructions to represent his views: Julius, bishop of Puteoli, Renatus, a presbyter, and Hilary, a deacon, together with Dulcitius, a notary. They started about the middle of June, and the Synod opened on the 8th of August in the church of the Blessed Virgin Mary. By the Emperor’s order, Dioscorus, patriarch of Alexandria, was president; Leo’s chief representative sat next to him, and Flavian was placed only fifth, the bishops of Antioch and Jerusalem being set above him. 130 bishops in all were admitted, those who had condemned Eutyches being excluded. Owing partly to the presence of the soldiery and a number of turbulent monks under the Syrian archimandrite Barsumas, the proceedings soon became riotous and disorderly. The “Tome” was not read at all, though that was the purpose of its composition. Eutyches was admitted to make his defense, which was received as completely satisfactory. The acts of the Synod of Constantinople, on being read, excited great indignation. Amid tremendous uproar, Eutyches was formally restored to communion and his former position, and the president pronounced deposition upon Flavian and Eusebius. Flavian appealed, and Hilary, after uttering a monosyllabic protest, “contradicitur” original: "it is contradicted", managed to make good his escape and carry the lamentable tidings to his anxiously expectant chief at Rome. The other bishops all, more or less reluctantly, subscribed to the restoration of Eutyches and the deposition of Flavian and Eusebius. The end of Flavian is variously recorded, but the most accurate version appears to be that, amid many blows and rough usage, he was cast into prison, then driven into exile, and that within a few days he died of the bodily and mental injuries he had received at Epypa, a village in Lydia. These calamitous proceedings Leo afterwards stigmatized as Latrocinium original: "brigandage", and the council is generally known as the Robber Council of Ephesus.

At the time when the disastrous news arrived at Rome, Leo was presiding over a council which he had convened; in violent indignation, he immediately dispatched letters right and left in his own and his colleagues’ name. There is a letter to Flavian, of whose death, of course, he was not yet aware; there are others to the archimandrites and the whole church of Constantinople, to Julian, bishop of Cos, and to Anastasius, bishop of Thessalonica. He used all his influence to prevail on the Emperor to summon a fresh council, this time in Italy.