"Moreover, the injunction we have laid upon the legates, that if memorials be presented to them against bishops who have persecuted Catholics, their judgment be reserved to the Apostolic See, that in their case the constitutions of the fathers be maintained, by which all may be edified."
Anastasius[96] tried again the old arts. He made a bid of everything to gain the legates. He seemed ready to accept everything save the demand regarding Acacius, which he was bound to reject on account of the Byzantine people. Both to the legates on their return to Rome, and to two officers of his court whom he sent to Rome, he gave honourable letters for the Pope, whom he invited to be present at the projected council, and endeavoured to satisfy fully by an orthodox profession of faith wherein he expressly recognised the Council of Chalcedon. One only point, he said, whatever might be his personal feeling, he could not concede, that regarding Acacius, since otherwise the living would be driven out of the Church for the dead, and great disturbances and blood-shedding would be inevitable. He left it to the Pope's consideration. He also wrote to the Roman senate to use its influence for the restoration of peace to the Church, as well with the Pope as with king Theodorick, "to whom," said the emperor, "the power and charge of governing you have been committed". It may be added that Theodorick favoured, as far as he could, the restoration of peace.
Pope Hormisdas, in his answer, praised the zeal made show of by the emperor, and wished that his deeds would correspond to his words. He could not contain his astonishment that the promised embassy was so long in coming, and that the emperor instead of sending bishops to him, sent two laymen of his court, in whom he soon recognised Monophysites, who tried to gain him in their favour. In a letter to St. Avitus and the bishops of his province, he discloses the judgment which he had formed. "As to the Greeks, they speak peace with their mouth, but carry it not in their hearts; their words are just, not their actions; they pretend to wish what their deeds deny; what they professed, they neglect; and pursue the conduct which they condemned."[97] Still he resolved to send a new embassy to Constantinople in 517, at the head of which he put the bishops Ennodius and Peregrinus. He gave them letters to the emperor, the patriarch Timotheus, the clergy and people of Constantinople.
Anastasius had endeavoured to delay the whole thing, and to deceive the orthodox until he found himself strong again, and was no longer in danger from Vitalian. To bribe the people, he gave the church of Constantinople seventy pounds' weight of gold for masses for the dead. With regard to the treatment of Acacius, he had the majority on his side, who were not easily brought to condemn him. Here, also, he had a pretext to break off impending agreements. When his wife Ariadne died, he showed himself still less inclined to peace. She had been devoted to Macedonius, and often interceded for the orthodox. As soon as he thought himself quite secure, he not only altered his behaviour and language to the Roman See, but, in the words of the Greek historian, about 200 bishops who had come to Heraclea from various parts had to separate without doing anything, "having been deluded by the lawless emperor and Timotheus, bishop of Constantinople".[98] The Pope's legates he tried to corrupt; when that did not succeed, he dismissed them in disgrace, and sent the Pope an insolent letter, in which he said he desisted from any requests to him, as reason forbade to throw away prayers on those who would listen to nothing, and while he might submit to injuries, he would not endure commands. Thereupon broke out a great persecution against Catholics, which the Archimandrites of the second Syria report to Hormisdas.
In a supplication signed by more than two hundred, they address him:[99] "Most blessed Father, we beseech you, arise; have compassion on the mangled body, for you are the head of all. Come to save us. Imitate our Lord, who came from heaven on earth to seek out the strayed sheep. Remember Peter, prince of the Apostles, whose See you adorn, and Paul, the vessel of election, for they went about enlightening the earth. The flock goes out to meet you, the true shepherd and teacher, to whom the care of all the sheep is committed, as the Lord says, 'My sheep hear My voice'. Most holy, despise us not, who are daily wounded by wild beasts." All that the Roman See had gained was that the orthodox bishops and many conspicuous easterns attached themselves to it, and the formulary binding them to obedience to the decisions of the Roman See found very many subscribers. The empire was in the greatest confusion when Anastasius died suddenly in the year 518, hated by the majority of his people, as perjured, heretical, and rapacious. Just before him died the heretical patriarchs, John II. of Alexandria and Timotheus of Constantinople.
Then suddenly,[100] as in the third century the Illyrian emperors saved the dissolving empire, another peasant, who in long and honourable service had risen to the rank of general, and was respected by all men as a virtuous man and a good Catholic, was called to take up that eastern crown of Constantine, which Zeno and Anastasius had soiled with the iniquities and perfidies of forty years.
At Bederiana, on the borders of Thrace and Illyria, there had lived three young men, Zimarchus, Ditybiotus, and Justin. Under pressure of misfortune they deserted the plough, and sought a livelihood elsewhere. They started on foot, their clothes packed on their backs, no money in their purses, with a loaf in their knapsacks. They came to Byzantium and enlisted. Twenty years of age and well grown, they attracted the notice of the emperor Leo I.: he enrolled them among his life-guards. Justin served as captain in the Isaurian war. For some unknown fault he was condemned to death by his general, and the next day was to be executed. The general, says Procopius, was changed by a vision which he saw that night. Under Anastasius, Justin rose to the rank of senator, patrician, and commander of the imperial guard. On the death of Anastasius, the eunuch Amantius, who was lord chamberlain, and had been up to that time all powerful, sent for Justin, and gave him great sums of money to get the voice of the soldiers and the people, for a creature of his own, named Theocritus, in whose name he intended to rule. Justin distributed the money in his own name, and on the 9th July was proclaimed emperor by army and people. He was sixty-eight years old, and, if Procopius may be believed, could not even write his own name, at least in Latin. But he was of long experience, and admirable in the management of affairs. His wife was named Lupicina, of barbarian birth. Justin, in the first year of his service, had bought her as a slave, and married her. When he became emperor he crowned her as empress, and with the applause of the people gave her the name of Euphemia. He had a nephew born at Tauresium, a village of Dardania, near Bederiana. He was called Uprauda in his own land; his father was Istock, his mother Vigleniza. The Romans changed these Teuton names to Justinian, Sabbatius, and Vigilantia. Uprauda, the Upright, was the future emperor Justinian.
The accession of Justin was received with universal joy; and the new emperor at once sent a high officer, Gratus, count of the sacred consistory, to announce it to Pope Hormisdas, with a letter in which he said that "John, who had succeeded as bishop of Constantinople, and the other bishops assembled there from various regions, having written to your Holiness for the unity of the churches, have earnestly besought us also to address our imperial letters to your Beatitude. We entreat you, then, to assist the desires of these most reverend prelates, and by your prayers to render favourable the divine majesty to us and the commonwealth, the government of which has been entrusted to us by God."[101]
The count Justinian also wrote to Pope Hormisdas that "the divine mercy, regarding the sorrows of the human race, had at length brought about this time of desire. Thus I am free to write to your apostolate, our Lord, the emperor, desiring to restore the churches to unity. A great part has been already done. It only requires to obtain the consent of your Beatitude respecting the name of Acacius. For this reason his majesty has sent to you my most particular friend Gratus, a man of the highest rank, that you might condescend to come to Constantinople for the restoration of concord, or at least hasten to send bishops hither, for the whole world in our parts is impatient for the restoration of unity."[102]
The result was that Pope Hormisdas held a council at Rome in 518, at which all that had been done by his predecessors, the Popes Simplicius, Felix, Gelasius, and Symmachus, was carefully reviewed, and all present decreed that the eastern Church should be received into communion with the Apostolic See, if they condemned the schismatic Acacius, entirely effacing his name, and also expunged from the diptychs Euphemius and Macedonius, as involved in the same guilt of schism. And a pontifical legation was then named to carry out the desire of the council, and they bore with them an instruction, from which they might not depart by a hair's-breadth.[103]