Pulcheria

ON ST. PULCHERIA, EMPRESS AND VIRGIN,

AT CONSTANTINOPLE.

In the year 453.

HISTORICAL COMMENTARY.

Pulcheria, empress and virgin, at Constantinople (St.)

BY J. S.

§ I. The memory of St. Pulcheria among the Greeks and the Latins: the emperor Marcian likewise commemorated in the Menæa, but of his cultus nothing is established: the cultus of St. Pulcheria: whence her deeds are to be drawn.

[ ] Although Greek and Latin Writers everywhere extol St. Pulcheria with the highest praises The memory of the Saint announced in the Greek and Latin Calendars: and celebrate her with the most excellent elogia, yet what is read of the most holy Empress in the sacred Calendars is very meagre and various, so that it can be determined only with difficulty where she is celebrated with an ecclesiastical Office, or on what day this is done. The Basilian Menology, at the VII of August, joins her with the empress Irene briefly in these words: And the commemoration of the religious empresses Pulcheria and Irene. The Sirletian Menology has at this day, the X of September, such an elogium as this: On the same day, the commemoration of St. Pulcheria the queen, resting in peace. She was the sister of Theodosius the Younger, called the wife of Marcian, an emperor distinguished for piety, who, having kept her very virginity even to old age, and having bestowed many excellent works on the building of churches and hospitals, and having aided the fathers of the holy Council of Chalcedon, rested in peace. Exactly the same things the Greek Menæa have at this day, with two verses added, however, which are of no moment. But I do not see that any other mention of St. Pulcheria is made in the Office prescribed there. Baronius, nevertheless, inserted St. Pulcheria in the Roman Martyrology on this day in this manner: At Constantinople, of St. Pulcheria Augusta, virgin, distinguished for religion and piety. Certain other Latins have followed Baronius, and we follow him too.

[2] That the memory of St. Pulcheria together with the emperor Marcian is also recalled in the Menæa at the XVII of February [in which in one place the emperor Marcian is joined with her, of whose cultus nothing is established.] our predecessors have already observed in the Prætermissi at that day. But neither is anything prescribed there about them in the Office, and a bare announcement is set down without any elogium: Τῇ αὐτῇ ἡμέρᾳ, μνήμη τῶν ἐν Εὐσεβεῖ μνήμῃ γενομένων, βασιλέων Μαρκιανοῦ καὶ Πουλχερίας. On the same day, the memory of the emperors Marcian and Pulcheria, of pious memory. And presently there is added, likewise in red letters: Τελεῖται δὲ ἡ αὐτῶν σύναξις ἐν τῇ μεγάλῃ ἐκκλησίᾳ. And their commemoration is performed in the greater church. In Maximus of Cythera the same announcement is read. In the rest of the Greek Calendars or ritual books I find nothing whatever about Marcian, nor anything more about St. Pulcheria at this day. Now, even though by the latter words it may seem to be suggested that some festival of both is performed in the greater church, I nevertheless somewhat doubt whether they are venerated as Saints by that festival, especially since the title of Saint is here omitted contrary to the custom of the Menæa, and since I do not find that title attributed to Marcian in any other place in the Calendars of the Greeks or the Latins, or in any ancient writer. Wherefore I should not dare to ascribe the title of Saint to Marcian, although I am otherwise not unaware that he was an emperor most excellent for piety, religion and other virtues.

[3] Du Cange believes the Saint was venerated from the time of the emperor Leo; But as regards St. Pulcheria, Du Cange, in the Byzantine Imperial Families, p. 97, writes thus of her cultus: But they say that the feast of Pulcheria Augusta was instituted by the emperor Leo the Great, and that her statue was set upon her monument. For these things he cites the Antiquities of Constantinople, gathered in Greek by an anonymous author and published by Lambeck, p. 71. Truly something similar is said there; but I doubt whether the passage is to be explained of a truly ecclesiastical cultus, since neither the title of Blessed nor of Saint is read added to the name of Pulcheria. I transfer hither the Greek words themselves: Πολλὰ τῇ βασιλίδι Πουλχερίᾳ Λέων ὁ μέγας ἐμακάριζεν· ὅθεν καὶ μνήμην αὐτῆς τῆς τελειώσεως ἐπετέλει, καὶ ἐν τῷ τάφῳ αὐτῆς αὐτὸς ἱστόρησε τὸ ταύτης ἴνδαλμα· καὶ ἐν τοῖς βασιλείοις δὲ θεωρῶν αὐτὴν ἐν ἱστορίᾳ, τὸν βίον ὅλον αὐτῆς ἐμακάρισεν. The same have been reprinted in Banduri, in the Eastern Empire, part 3, p. 95, and there rendered into Latin in this way: Leo the great was wont much to celebrate the most blessed Pulcheria Augusta. Whence he also venerated the memory of her consummation or departure, and set her image upon her tomb; and contemplating her portrait painted in the imperial palace, he proclaimed her whole life. But this version is somewhat too free: for the word "most blessed" is not in the Greek, certainly not in the sense in which it is expressed in Latin.

[4] but this is not established by the reason he alleges; Hence the earlier Greek words will be more rightly expressed in Latin for our purpose thus: Leo the great often proclaimed the empress Pulcheria blessed, etc. There can be no doubt that these things are the more honourable to St. Pulcheria in proportion as the emperor Leo, who succeeded Marcian in the empire, could the more certainly know all her deeds. But I should not dare to conclude with certainty from what has been adduced that St. Pulcheria was honoured with an ecclesiastical cultus in the reign of Leo I, since the words adduced do not establish it certainly, and since many things stand in the way of our believing that this was done from that time. Further, after the words recited, Papias, whose they are, adds: And the same Leo, having translated the statues of Marcian and Pulcheria into the Theodosian porticoes, added them to the imperial city. Of another statue of St. Pulcheria, placed in the Chalce almost directly before the walk of the Palace, the Anonymous author in the said Banduri makes mention at p. 7, and in the same place at p. 87 Theodore the Lector. The same statue also Pierre Gilles commemorates from Suidas in the same place at p. 384; and the words of Suidas himself and of Codinus about it Banduri recites, tom. 2, p. 471. Another statue of Pulcheria, set up in the senate, Banduri shows, tom. 2, p. 844.

[5] Another Anonymous author, likewise published by Banduri, treating of the Tombs of the emperors in the church of the Apostles at Constantinople, and many things persuade us on the contrary that her veneration began later: commemorates the urn of Marcian and Pulcheria thus at p. 122: Another porphyry urn, where Marcian and Pulcheria are entombed. I observe that this writer, although he gave the title of Saint to Constantine the Great and to St. Theodora the empress, of whom we treated at the XI of February, nevertheless abstained from that title in the case of Marcian and Pulcheria, who flourished four centuries before St. Theodora. This truly seems remarkable, if the festival of St. Pulcheria had already been instituted and celebrated in the time of Leo Augustus, that is, in the fifth century; especially since other Greek writers everywhere abstain from the title of Saint when they praise Pulcheria, and since in the very Menology composed by order of the emperor Basil after the middle of the tenth century she is mentioned only as a religious Empress, not as a Saint. Besides, I could find no church dedicated to the name of St. Pulcheria, and finally nothing by which I might be able to show that her cultus is very ancient. And so from what has been said I am compelled to conclude that the cultus of St. Pulcheria seems to be many centuries later than the reign of Leo I, and never to have been so celebrated and solemn among the Greeks as the outstanding virtues in which all agree that the Saint flourished seem to deserve. What the cause may be why the cultus of St. Pulcheria was not more promoted among the Greeks, I shall not easily divine; unless perhaps the Greeks did not much care for a Saint most devoted to the Roman Church. Whatever it may be, neither did her contemporaries keep silence about her outstanding virtues, nor the later Greeks; the title of Blessed also St. Theophanes frequently attributes to her, with certain others; and at last both Greeks and Latins have honoured her with the title of Saint. Indeed I cannot doubt that the Greeks also venerate the Saint with an ecclesiastical Office, at least in some particular churches.

[6] As regards the Life of the Saint, no one of the Greeks, so far as we know, the writers who have treated of the Saint. undertook to write it. But this defect can in some fashion be supplied from the historians, who have recorded not a few things of the deeds and virtues of the Saint. Sozomen leads their company, who lived at the same time and might by himself alone have supplied the want of a Life, if he had carried his writing on to the death of the holy Empress; but he wrote only the deeds of the earlier years, or at any rate only those have come down to us. Those who flourished at the same time, Socrates and Theodoret, and the other historians of that century, passed over nearly all the deeds of St. Pulcheria, so that it is necessary to have recourse also to more remote historians. Yet no small help can be afforded by the letters of St. Leo the Pope and by the Councils, in which the piety of the holy Empress is wonderfully commended. From these monuments, further, Baronius, Tillemont, Baillet and other more recent writers have treated of St. Pulcheria, among whom is Matthäus Rader of the Society of Jesus, who in the year 1614 published a little work which he entitled The Holy Court, comprising the deeds of the emperor Theodosius II and of the empresses Pulcheria and Eudocia. These and other writers I shall compare with the more ancient and contemporary ones, and shall either follow or correct them, as reason shall seem to require.

§ II. The family of St. Pulcheria, and her brother and sisters: her own age and that of her brother Theodosius at the death of their father Arcadius.

[ ] The Saint's name, parents, brother, sisters: St. Pulcheria, called on the coins and sometimes in writings Ælia Pulcheria, was the daughter of the emperor Arcadius and of Eudoxia his wife, the granddaughter of Theodosius the Great and the sister of Theodosius II, or the Younger, as he is everywhere called. She had at least two sisters; but some writers add a third, and indeed one older than herself. This number of the sisters seems to me to require careful examination, as does the time at which St. Pulcheria was born: for the ancient writers do not write the same things about these matters. Sozomen, book 9, chap. 1, records the death of Arcadius and the children left by him thus: When Atticus was in the third year of his episcopate at Constantinople, in the consulship of Bassus and Philippus, Arcadius made an end of living, leaving as successor to the empire his son Theodosius, who had then been but lately weaned; and leaving his daughters Pulcheria, Arcadia and Marina, still very young. By which thing God seems to me to have declared most of all that piety alone suffices for the safety of emperors; but that without it neither armies nor the strength of the emperor nor the rest of his apparatus profits anything. For when the Divine power, the guardian of this universe, had foreseen that the emperor would be most religious, it appointed as guardian of him and of the whole empire his sister Pulcheria; who, although not yet fifteen years old, nevertheless received a wisdom beyond her age and a truly divine understanding.

[8] [only two sisters are attributed to her by Sozomen and Philostorgius, her contemporaries:] On these words I observe, first, that only three daughters of Arcadius are reckoned by Sozomen, and that the eldest of them was Pulcheria. Secondly, that in the mind of this writer Theodosius seems younger than these three sisters: for he is said to have been lately weaned, in Greek ἀρτίως γάλακτι τρέφεσθαι

πεπαυμένος, one who had lately ceased to be fed with milk; while all the sisters are called very young girls, or exceedingly young, as the Greek words κομιδῆ νέας have it. Philostorgius, likewise a contemporary writer, agrees accurately with Sozomen concerning the number and order of the children of Arcadius. For that writer, as he was abridged into an epitome by Photius and published by Jacques Godefroy, has it thus at book XI, num. 7: And she herself (the empress Eudoxia) had already borne two daughters to Arcadius; and thereafter she brought forth both Marina and her son Theodosius. But at the time when she was already the mother of two children, having been treated with insult by Eutropius — and that so far that he threatened her that he would shortly drive her from the palace — she came to her husband holding the children one in each hand. Presently there follows the exile and death of Eutropius, which it is certain happened in the year 399, as the writers agree. Pagi, at that year, num. 2, expresses the time of the exile thus: Eutropius on the XVI of the Kalends of February was stripped of all his dignities and banished to the island of Cyprus, as is established from the law in the Theodosian Code 17, On Penalties, given on that day. These things I bring forward not only to show that Philostorgius agrees about the number and order of the children of Arcadius, but at the same time that I may afterwards subjoin something from them concerning the age of St. Pulcheria.

[9] Marcellinus Comes in his Chronicle reckons the children of Arcadius and Eudoxia in another way and order, but besides these, in the Paschal Chronicle Flaccilla is set down as the eldest, and had assenting to him so far the author of the Paschal Chronicle, who nevertheless adds one daughter; and to this last most of the moderns have at length adhered. For this cause it is worth inspecting the whole foundation. Marcellinus, at the year 397, Indiction X, in the consulship of Cæsarius and Atticus, has it thus: In this consulship Flaccilla was born, a daughter to Arcadius. At the year 399: Pulcheria, a second daughter, was born to Arcadius. At the year 401: Theodosius the younger was born of his father Arcadius on the III Ides of April. At the year 403: Marina was born of her father Arcadius on the III Ides of February. All these things have been transferred into the Paschal Chronicle, which is otherwise called the Alexandrian. But there at the year 400 Arcadia is added, as another daughter of Arcadius born between Pulcheria and Theodosius. All these things have pleased the moderns; but I strongly doubt whether Arcadius really had these four daughters, and I can scarcely believe that he had any daughter before St. Pulcheria, because both Philostorgius and Sozomen name her everywhere in the first place, and nowhere made mention of Flaccilla. Nay, the Paschal Chronicle itself attributes only three daughters to Arcadius at the year 396, where it has it thus: This Arcadius, son of Theodosius the great, had as wife Eudoxia, of whom was born Theodosius the younger. He had also daughters, Pulcheria, Arcadia and Marina.

[10] Again I repeat that it seems to me far more probable [but the author of that Chronicle seems to have made two out of one daughter of Arcadius:] that Arcadius had only three daughters, and that Pulcheria was the eldest of them all. That the author of the error is partly Marcellinus, who is a hundred and fifty years later than these events, I judge likely — either because Flaccilla is the same as Arcadia, who could have had both names, and is elsewhere omitted; or because he wrongly attributed to Arcadius the Flaccilla who was the daughter of Theodosius, of whose death he makes mention at the year 431. If one Flaccilla was the daughter of Arcadius and the other of Theodosius II, Marcellinus omitted the birth of the one and the death of the other. As regards the Paschal Chronicle, its author, being far later and often less accurate, could easily have added the Flaccilla found in Marcellinus to the three others mentioned by other writers. The reasons why I so judge are these. First, Philostorgius, who in this matter, being a contemporary, is far to be preferred to Marcellinus, clearly excludes any fourth daughter of Arcadius. He likewise clearly declares that only one daughter was born to Theodosius after the fall of Eutropius, that is, after the year 399, and that she was Marina. Therefore those two who had been born before the fall of Eutropius were Pulcheria and Arcadia. And so Marcellinus seems by Flaccilla to have understood none other than Arcadia; and consequently the author of the Paschal Chronicle probably made two out of one who was perhaps called Flaccilla Arcadia.

[11] These things now suffice to refute Tillemont, who with most others presses closely upon the Paschal Chronicle, certainly Arcadius seems to have had only three daughters, and, attributing four daughters to Arcadius, says that Flaccilla was born in the year 397, Pulcheria in the year 399, Arcadia in the year 400, and Marina finally in the year 403: for according to Philostorgius Marina alone of the daughters was born after the fall of Eutropius. Further, Tillemont, having admitted the words of Philostorgius, nevertheless wished to preserve the year and day of Pulcheria's birth fixed by Marcellinus. To this end, tom. 5 of the Emperors, note 22 on Arcadius, observing that the law concerning the exile of Eutropius is noted as given on the XVII of January of the year 399, he says that this cannot stand with the time of Pulcheria's birth, because her birthday is the XIX of January of the same year: for according to Philostorgius Pulcheria had been born before the fall of Eutropius. Hence he suspects that the date of the given law is corrupt. But this is said gratuitously, nor can it yet profit Tillemont for reconciling Philostorgius with the Paschal Chronicle. For Arcadia in the Chronicle is said to have been born in the year 400, by which time Eutropius had certainly long since been slain. But Philostorgius asserts that of the three daughters of Arcadius Marina alone was born after the fall of Eutropius, and the other two before his fall. Philostorgius, therefore, contradicts the Paschal Chronicle. Wherefore, since Philostorgius has Sozomen rightly agreeing with him, and both of them lived among these persons, the Paschal Chronicle must be convicted of error and abandoned; nor are other daughters to be attributed to Arcadius besides Pulcheria, Arcadia and Marina, who alone are reckoned in the Paschal Chronicle itself at the year 396.

[12] and the eldest of these must be said to be St. Pulcheria: Besides, I cannot doubt that Marcellinus also wandered from the truth — not indeed in the number of the daughters of Arcadius, but in the order in which each was born. He makes Pulcheria the second of the three, and says she was born in the year 399, on the XIX day of January. But it is not likely, on account of what has been said about Eutropius, whose fall certainly happened on the XVII of January of the same year, that any daughter of Arcadius had been born at that time; but two had already been born before, as Philostorgius testifies. And these two can be none other than Pulcheria and Arcadia: and it is certainly established that Pulcheria was older than Arcadia. And so, since Arcadius contracted marriage in the year 395, and indeed, according to the Paschal Chronicle, on the XXVII day of April, the birth of St. Pulcheria is most probably to be referred to the year 396, and cannot probably be placed after the year 397, because her sister Arcadia was born after her and before the year 399. If Marina, the other sister of Pulcheria, was also born before Theodosius, as Philostorgius and Sozomen seem to suggest, she will have been born in the year 399 or 400: for about the year 401, in which Theodosius came into the light, all agree.

[13] she was about twelve years old when Arcadius died; From what has been said it will be possible to gather about how many years Pulcheria was when her father Arcadius died, whose death Socrates, book 7, chap. 1, fixes on the Kalends of May in the year 408. The emperor Theodosius was then in his eighth year, as is clear from the year of his birth, and Socrates and other writers also expressly state it. Du Cange, in the Byzantine Families, p. 70, Tillemont, tom. 15 of the Monuments of the Church, in Pulcheria, Baillet at the X of September, and very many others think that Pulcheria was only two years older than Theodosius, that is, that she was then in her tenth year, because they followed Marcellinus and the Paschal Chronicle. Pagi, at the year 399, num. 4, states that opinion, and calls the credit of Philostorgius into doubt, because his words cannot be reconciled with that opinion. Yet he presently adds the following: If, however, Philostorgius relates the truth, then Marcellinus and the author of the Alexandrian Chronicle set down Pulcheria's birth a year too late, and that error will have to be attributed to Marcellinus, from whom the author of the Alexandrian Chronicle copied most things. But it will be no crime if we say that Marcellinus strayed further still, as not seldom befell him and other writers of Chronicles, especially in those matters from which they were more remote. Nay, we shall sin against sound criticism, so far as it appears to me, if we should so much as wish to doubt whether Philostorgius, a contemporary writer, is here to be believed, or Marcellinus, a hundred and fifty years later.

[14] Wherefore, in accordance with what has been said, I altogether judge that St. Pulcheria, when Arcadius died, was a girl of nearly twelve years, so that she was in her twelfth or thirteenth year. although Sozomen and Theophanes assign her somewhat more, The greater the age we can attribute to Pulcheria, the more will this agree with her earlier deeds, which we shall presently relate, and which altogether indicate that she was born easily four or five years before Theodosius. Hence I judge that Sozomen is speaking of the time when Arcadius died, when he says: Who, although not yet fifteen years old, etc.; in Greek, οὔπω πεντεκαὶδέκατον ἔτος ἄγουσα, not yet being in her fifteenth year — so that he means that she had not yet completed fourteen years. Theophanes too speaks clearly of the same time when he says: Theodosius having been received as emperor, his sister Pulcheria, a virgin of fifteen years, administered the public affairs excellently by the counsel and guidance of God, etc. For each of them afterwards distinguishes the time at which she was created Empress, six years later. Tillemont, however, and others have supposed that the said writers attribute only fifteen years to Pulcheria at the time when she was created Augusta. But they were led into that opinion only because they followed the era of the Paschal or Alexandrian Chronicle, just now refuted, which cannot be made to agree with what Sozomen and Theophanes say.

[15] Further, because I see that most learned men are of the opposite opinion, who are speaking of her age at her father's death, it will be useful to set out what has been said somewhat more fully. Sozomen speaks of the age of Pulcheria at which she began to have the care of her brother Theodosius, at which she vowed virginity, at which she offered a notable gift to the church. But she began to instruct her brother — as I shall clearly show from Theophanes — she vowed virginity, and she offered that gift, before she was made Augusta. Sozomen therefore is not speaking of the time when she took up the supreme power, when he says that Pulcheria was not yet in her fifteenth year. Sozomen himself sets out his mind on this matter, when, after he had related the aforesaid things, he adds these words: But after she took up the care of the sovereignty, etc. The opinion of Theophanes is no less clear. For, having related the death of Arcadius, he presently says that Antiochus was the guardian of Theodosius, and attributes his instruction to the emperor Honorius, who was far away, and to his sister Pulcheria in these words: And he was well and skilfully instructed in Christian teaching by his uncle Honorius and by his sister Pulcheria. Nay, he attributes the administration of public affairs from that time to Pulcheria

in the words given above at num. 14; not, however, the supreme authority.

[16] This is established by the words which Theophanes subjoins in the fifth year after, at p. 70: or at any rate not of the age at which she was made empress. In this same year Antiochus the Persian departed from among the living (ἐκ ποδῶν γἑγονε, which may otherwise be rendered, was removed); but the most blessed Pulcheria exercised the supreme and absolute administration of affairs. From these words it seems clear to me that Sozomen and Theophanes are not describing the age of Pulcheria when she was proclaimed Augusta, but rather when Arcadius died, or, if anyone prefers to suspect this, when she began to instruct her brother, or when she vowed virginity: for Theophanes certainly attributes somewhat more age to the Saint than she had when her father died, since she was then most probably in her twelfth or thirteenth year, as we saw above. With this era the Paschal Chronicle itself agrees at the year 450: for it attributes to Pulcheria, marrying in that year, 54 years, which she could not then have had unless she was born in the year 396 or 397.

§ III. Whether the guardianship of Theodosius was committed to the king of the Persians and exercised through Antiochus: the deeds of St. Pulcheria in the first six years of Theodosius.

[ ] [Arcadius is said to have appointed Yazdegerd, king of the Persians, guardian of Theodosius:] Zonaras, book 13 of the Annals, num. 22, or tom. 2, p. 40, writes this: But Theodosius the younger was at Constantinople carefully brought up and instructed by the zeal of his sister Pulcheria, no one rising up against them for fear of Yazdegerd, king of the Persians. For Arcadius, when dying, had named Yazdegerd in his will as guardian of his son, who was still a boy, as has been said. And he, having accepted this, sent Antiochus, the chief of his eunuchs, as keeper and guardian of the emperor Theodosius, admonishing the nobles by letters to obey their emperor; and that if they did not do so, he would not overlook wrongs done to the boy. This history was first written by Procopius of Cæsarea, book 1 On the Persian War, chap. 1, where he sets out at greater length by what reasons Arcadius was moved to take that resolution. Agathias, who wrote a little after Procopius, speaks thus in book 4, after briefly relating the fact: For this account, handed down from of old as it were from hand to hand to posterity, has prevailed very greatly even today among us, and is carried about among learned men and the common sort alike; but I do not find it recorded in any writing or in the books of the historians, not even in those who wrote about the death of Arcadius, with the single exception of Procopius the rhetorician. Nor indeed, in my judgment, is it any wonder that this narrative also, written down of old by another, should have come to the knowledge of this man of manifold learning, who culled, to say it in one word, the whole of history, but by no means to my own, who do not know every minutest thing — if indeed these are to be called minutest. So Agathias, rendered into Latin by Vulcanius, p. 125, neither altogether asserting that fact nor rejecting it.

[18] Tillemont attacks that history: Further, neither Procopius nor Agathias says anything of Antiochus being appointed guardian of Theodosius; but Theophanes first added this, and Zonaras followed him, as afterwards did Cedrenus, tom. 1, p. 334, and Nicephorus, book 14, chap. 1. Baronius and Pagi at the year 408, and other writers, admit without any doubt that Yazdegerd was appointed guardian of Theodosius, and that Antiochus was for this cause sent by Yazdegerd to Constantinople. But Tillemont, tom. 6 of the Emperors, note 1 on Theodosius, uses many arguments to render that whole history suspect and to show that it must be numbered among fables. It is worth examining the arguments brought forward to this end. First, he says, no one wrote down that so famous fact for a hundred and fifty years, not even those, as Agathias observes, who related the death of Arcadius. Silent about it are Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret, Zosimus, Philostorgius, both Prospers, Marcellinus Comes. I answer that there is none of these writers who did not omit many other things most worthy of relation, so that it is the less to be wondered at if they omitted this too. As regards Socrates, Sozomen, Theodoret and Philostorgius, who wrote under Theodosius, they could easily omit that fact, honourable to the Persians, lest they should publish before the world how much Theodosius owed to the king of the Persians. That it was omitted in the brief Chronicles of Prosper and Marcellinus is not even worth observing. Nor can we wonder at Zosimus' silence on these matters either, since he did not finish his History, and scarcely touches lightly on the death of Arcadius, and writes almost nothing about Theodosius the Younger.

[19] Secondly, Tillemont strives to show that some things are related by Zosimus and Sozomen by some arguments which are of no great moment: which do not cohere with the guardianship of Yazdegerd. Both indeed relate that Honorius wished to come to Constantinople to look after Theodosius, but that Stilicho dissuaded him, who himself desired to go there with a military column. On these matters Sozomen may be seen, book 9, chap. 4, and Zosimus, book 5, p. 807. But these things by no means conflict with the guardianship of Yazdegerd, of which Honorius, at first, while he was meditating the journey to Constantinople, could easily have been ignorant, or, if he knew of it, could have disapproved. Tillemont's third objection is no better, but rather makes plain that he did not rightly understand the mind of those writers who attributed the guardianship of Theodosius to Yazdegerd. Anthemius, he says, according to Socrates, book 7, chap. 1, governed the Eastern empire; not Antiochus, as Theophanes asserts. I answer that neither Theophanes nor any other says that such authority was attributed to Yazdegerd or to Antiochus that they should appoint what ministers they wished, or that they did this, if indeed they could have done it: but that the care was committed to Yazdegerd of looking after the safety of the emperor, lest anyone should lay snares for him or attempt a revolution. Anthemius, therefore, as prætorian prefect, administered the sum of affairs under Theodosius, as Socrates has it. But Antiochus, as Theophanes has it, showed himself the emperor's companion everywhere. And he was well and skilfully instructed in Christian teaching by his uncle Honorius, perhaps exhorting him by letters, and most of all by his sister Pulcheria; and peace was long carried on between the Romans and the Persians, at least until the death of Yazdegerd, who died in the year 520. All these things cohere most aptly and admit of no difficulty.

[20] Besides, it is certain that a certain Antiochus was powerful in the court of Theodosius the younger. and by which he does not establish that it is to be held fictitious. For St. Isidore of Pelusium, in letter 36, which he addresses to Antiochus, eunuch of the palace, as the Greek inscription has it, commends justice to him, and speaks thus of his power: And since you are not only a minister of the empire, but even govern it yourself according to your own judgment and pleasure, etc. Of the same Antiochus, as Tillemont himself judges, Synesius speaks in Letter 110, when he says: But Antiochus can do whatever he wishes. He asserts that this same man was also powerful with Narses the Persian, and from that time remained powerful. If, then, Antiochus was powerful in the court of Theodosius, and the same man powerful among the Persians, for what cause is the history written by so many writers from the sixth century to be denied? I certainly do not grasp why Tillemont should prefer to suspect that this Antiochus came of his own accord from Persia into the service of Theodosius, and that the whole history was thence fabricated, rather than that he was sent there by Yazdegerd, as Theophanes and others have written. Certainly so great a power of his is more likely if he was sent as guardian and tutor of Theodosius by Yazdegerd, who kept perpetual peace with Theodosius, than if he betook himself to the court of Theodosius merely on a private resolve. And so the objections of Tillemont do not suffice for us to hold that whole history of the guardianship of Theodosius conferred on Yazdegerd to be fictitious, especially since it is of such a nature that it does not seem strange that it was omitted by various Greek writers; but on the contrary it would be most strange if it had been fabricated for the favour of the king of the Persians.

[21] St. Pulcheria vows virginity to God, and confirms the vow with a notable gift, What St. Pulcheria did in the meantime Sozomen recounts thus, book 9, chap. 1: And first indeed she consecrated her own virginity to God, and formed her sisters to the same manner of life, that she might introduce no other man into the palace, and that she might exclude every occasion of rivalry and of plots. Finally, that she might the more confirm what she had determined, and might have God and the priests and all her subjects as witnesses of her deeds, she dedicated in the church of Constantinople, for her own virginity and for her brother's empire, a certain admirable offering of gold and precious stones, by far the most beautiful of the works that are to be seen — a sacred table. And on the front of that table she inscribed these very things, that they might be visible to all. All these things Tillemont, in his Pulcheria, relates after the year 414, in which she was declared Augusta, because, I suppose, he believed they did not suit the age which he himself attributes to Pulcheria on the authority of Marcellinus. But Sozomen clearly puts these things first, and by his testimony we shall stand here far more rightly than by the assertions of Marcellinus about the year of her birth, already refuted above; especially since it is not even likely that the empire was conferred on Pulcheria before she had vowed virginity.

[22] she begins to instruct her brother Theodosius, The things which then follow in Sozomen concerning the instructing of Theodosius I judge to have been begun in some fashion immediately after the death of Arcadius, as Theophanes indicates, writing thus: Theodosius having been received as emperor, his sister Pulcheria, a virgin of fifteen years, administered public affairs excellently by the counsel and guidance of God, … and, as one most wise and endowed by nature with a divine understanding, she instructed her brother Theodosius that he should above all things have piety toward God, etc. Philostorgius too, book 12, num. 7, suggests that Pulcheria had some authority as soon as Arcadius died, when he writes this: Arcadius being dead, his son Theodosius, being still very young, is designated successor of the Eastern empire. And his sister Pulcheria was at his side, aiding and directing the imperial dispositions. From all these things I persuade myself that St. Pulcheria did not indeed prevail with chief authority at that time, but neither was she wholly without authority, and that some sort of care of instructing her brother had already then been committed to her; yet that the Saint's authority grew little by little with her age.

[23] [and begins to administer the affairs of the empire, before she is created Augusta.] This grew most of all through the death or withdrawal of Antiochus the Persian, of whom Theophanes writes thus at the fifth year of Theodosius: In this same year Antiochus the Persian departed from among the living (in Greek ἐκ ποδῶν γέγονε, that is, was taken from the midst, or died, or also was removed); but the most blessed Pulcheria exercised the supreme and absolute administration of affairs. It may rightly be doubted here whether Pulcheria was declared Augusta at the same time at which that Antiochus departed: for, even though the fifth year of Theodosius does not agree with the year 414, in which Marcellinus and the author of the Paschal Chronicle write that she was declared Augusta, there may be a suspicion that Theophanes understands by the absolute administration of affairs the supreme dignity conferred on her, since he does not afterwards make mention of that conferring. If Theophanes really meant that, either he himself anticipated the event by one year,

or others said that she was created Augusta later than was right. But it seems to me more probable that the administration of the empire without the title of Augusta was committed to Pulcheria in the year 413; and that the empire itself was conferred on her in the year 414, after her diligence had been more and more approved.

§ IV. Created Augusta, she presides prudently: the instruction of her brother and sisters: the piety of all, and their ordinary manner of life: the little work of St. Atticus to the sisters: Eudocia given as wife to Theodosius.

[ ] [Being about 18 years old, she is proclaimed Augusta: she then rightly administers the empire.] The Paschal Chronicle at the year 414, or Indiction XII, in the consulship of Constantius and Constans, has it thus: In this consulship Pulcheria, the most noble sister of Theodosius the Younger, Augustus, was proclaimed Augusta in the month Panemus, that is, on the fourth of the Nones of July. About the year Marcellinus agrees, but omits the day. She was then in age about eighteen years, according to what was said above about the year of her birth. Sozomen, book 9, chap. 1, praises her administration in these words: But after she took up the care of the sovereignty, she governed the Roman world excellently and most becomingly; for she both took counsel rightly and swiftly carried out and wrote down what was resolved. For she was skilled in speaking and writing elegantly, in both the Greek and the Latin tongue. And the praise of all that was done she referred to her brother. And she took pains that he should be brought up as royally as possible, with studies suited to the capacity of his age. And he learned the art of riding, and also the science of arms and of letters, from those skilled in such things. But that he should bear himself in processions with gravity and in a manner befitting the imperial majesty, he was taught by his Sister: how he should wear his robe; how he should sit and how walk; how he should restrain his laughter, and according to place and time should be now mild, now formidable, and should becomingly hear those who asked anything of him.

[25] But she chiefly formed him to piety, accustoming him to pray assiduously and she instructs her brother in piety: other notable virtues of the Saint, and to visit the churches, and to adorn them with offerings and precious gifts; to hold in esteem the priests and all good men, and those who followed philosophy according to the laws and institutions of Christians. Besides, when religion seemed likely to be disturbed by adulterate doctrines, she herself zealously and wisely provided against it. Certainly we shall find that she was the cause why new heresies did not at all prevail in our age, as will be more openly known in what follows. Further, since she worshipped God with the greatest religion, it would be a long task to recount among whom and how many churches she magnificently built, how many lodgings for the poor and for pilgrims, how many monasteries she finally established, with perpetual revenues appointed for these and a corn allowance for the maintenance of those who should abide there. But if anyone should prefer to search out the truth from the facts themselves rather than believe my words, he will assuredly find that I write these things neither falsely nor for favour, when he has read the record of these matters written out by the stewards of her goods, and has examined from the writings whether the facts themselves agree with our words. But if to anyone these things by themselves do not suffice, let God at any rate make him believe, who holds her so dear and acceptable for the holiness of her life that He swiftly hears her when she prays, and often foretells to her what is to be done. For I would not say that the love and goodwill of God is ever won for men, unless they have shown themselves by their works worthy of that love. Thus far Sozomen, briefly heaping up many things; but some of them will afterwards be more fully explained.

[26] who also taught her sisters to keep virginity: That not only Theodosius, but her sisters Arcadia and Marina also, were instructed in piety by St. Pulcheria we have already seen above. But how happy that instruction was is clear from various writers. Sozomen, book 9, chap. 3, sets out the manner of life of them all in these words: For they too (Pulcheria and her sisters) follow the same manner and rule of life. Toward the priests and the sacred buildings they are ready and diligent; toward strangers, the needy and the poor, munificent. Their table is for the most part the same for all, and their going forth the same. By night and by day they sing hymns to God together. And as is the custom of honourable women, they are diligent in weaving and in works of that kind. For idleness and sloth, although they were Augustæ and born and brought up in the empire, they judged unworthy of the sacred virginity which they profess, and banished far from their life. For which cause, since God was manifestly favourable and guarded their house with His protection, the emperor's age and empire increased day by day. But the plots and wars, whatever were stirred up against him, were dispelled of their own accord. This last he then strives to prove by various examples, as Socrates and others do also. Theodoret, book 5, chap. 36, agreeing with these things, says: For God both granted him (Theodosius) a pious upbringing, and gave him an empire free from seditions and tumults, and repressed the tyrannical designs of others.

[27] the piety of Theodosius and his sisters, and their other virtues, Then he celebrates the piety of Theodosius and his sisters thus: Mindful therefore of the benefits, he assiduously celebrates his Author with praises; and he has as companions of his hymns his sisters, who cultivate perpetual virginity and hold the meditation of the sacred oracles for their highest delight, and who reckon the need of the poor to be their safest treasure. Moreover the emperor himself is adorned both with many other gifts and especially with clemency and mildness, and with a tranquillity of soul which is disturbed by no storm; and besides these, with a sincere and approved faith. These things were most true of Theodosius so long as the authority of his holy Sister prevailed with him. Socrates, book 7, chap. 22, commends the virtues of Theodosius, and especially his clemency and piety, with a notable elogium. Some of them, which beyond doubt he owed to St. Pulcheria, I transfer hither: First, therefore, although he was born and brought up in the empire, he contracted from that upbringing nothing of dullness or folly; but he was always so prudent that to those who conversed with him he seemed to have gathered the knowledge of very many things by use and experience. And so great was his fortitude and endurance that he bore cold and heat alike with a noble spirit; he fasted also very frequently, and especially on the fourth and sixth days of the week.

[28] And he did this, striving to observe accurately the rites of the Christian Religion. [which seem to have arisen from the instruction of Pulcheria; the little work of St. Atticus to the sisters.] Finally, he so ordered his palace that it differed little from a monastery. At morning he himself together with his sisters was wont to recite hymns in praise of God by turns. And so he knew the books of sacred Scripture by heart. And with the bishops who came to him he discoursed about them like some veteran priest. And in collecting the divine books and their interpreters he used far greater diligence than Ptolemy Philadelphus of old. And in clemency and humanity he surpassed all mortals by a long interval. More things can be brought forward concerning the piety of Theodosius and his sisters. But these suffice for anyone to perceive with how much fruit the most prudent Pulcheria educated them all in piety. To this care there was added also St. Atticus, who then presided over the church of Constantinople: for to nourish the piety of Pulcheria and her sisters he directed to them a certain little work, of which Marcellinus Comes writes thus at the year 416: Atticus, bishop of Constantinople, wrote to the queens, the daughters of the emperor Arcadius, a most excellent little book on faith and virginity, in which by anticipation he attacks the Nestorian doctrine. Gennadius, in his Catalogue of illustrious men, mentions that work of Atticus in nearly the same words. But that little work has not been preserved down to our times.

[29] Further, when Theodosius had come to that age at which he should think of contracting marriage, [Pulcheria concerned about the marriage of Theodosius, on account of her excellence of mind,] here too he had St. Pulcheria as his helper: for the marriage of Theodosius with Athenaïs is attributed to the care and zeal of St. Pulcheria. And that this wife was given to Theodosius by Pulcheria on account of the excellent gifts of her nature and education is clearly gathered from what writers report of her. For she was very learned, being the daughter of Leontius the sophist of Athens, taught by her father and instructed in every kind of letters, says Socrates, book 7, chap. 21, where he had said before: Nay, the emperor's wife herself composed poems in heroic verse. Other writers agree about the praise of her learning, and about the verses elegantly written by Eudocia Photius may be seen in the Bibliotheca, p. 414 and following. And so we cannot doubt that on account of her excellence of genius and learning Eudocia pleased St. Pulcheria above the rest, and was proposed by her to Theodosius for marriage.

[30] About the year of the marriage the writers somewhat disagree. [she chooses for him Athenaïs, daughter of a philosopher, who is first baptized and called Eudocia:] Theophanes assigns the eleventh year of Theodosius, that is, the year of the Christian era 418 or 419. The Alexandrian Chronicle relates the arrival of Athenaïs under the consuls of the year 420; but it defers the marriage, as Marcellinus also does, to the year 421. But whatever be the case about the year of the marriage, Theophanes asserts that it was contracted by the counsel of Pulcheria, writing thus: In this year Atticus baptized the daughter of Leontius the philosopher, Athenaïs by name, whom he also called Eudocia. Since she excelled in elegance of body, in shrewdness of mind and in eloquence of speech, she was married to Theodosius by the counsels of Pulcheria. Socrates agrees about the baptism in these words: When the emperor Theodosius was about to take her to wife, Atticus the bishop made her a Christian, and in baptism named her Eudocia in place of Athenaïs. I add Evagrius, book 1, chap. 20, writing briefly of this marriage: Further, Theodosius took to wife Eudocia, an Athenian by family, elegant in form and not unskilled in the poetic art, by the intervention of Pulcheria Augusta his sister, when she had first been washed in the saving font.

[31] the occasion on which she is said to have come to Pulcheria. The occasion of this marriage contemporary or nearly contemporary writers have not set out. But the Alexandrian Chronicle relates a fairly long history of it, which does not seem so certain as it is marvellous. Other Greeks, however, have also related the same. Zonaras, tom. 2, p. 40, reports the matter compendiously thus: To him (Theodosius), now come to manhood, his sister Pulcheria betrothed Eudocia of Athens, endowed with excellent beauty and polished in every kind of learning. She was the daughter of a certain Leontius, an Athenian philosopher, and was named Athenaïs; who, when he had learned by his art that she would obtain a splendid fortune, left his wealth by will to his two sons, Valerius and Genesius, only a hundred gold pieces being bequeathed to his daughter, with this clause added, that her own fortune would suffice her. The brothers therefore, having claimed the patrimony for themselves, drove Athenaïs, who demanded her lawful portion, even from her father's house. And she, being taken in by her mother's sister and brought to Constantinople, they set out the case and make supplication to Pulcheria. And she, when she had seen that the girl was most beautiful and of unimpaired age, asks whether she was still without a husband. Having learned this, she baptizes her, still ignorant of the Christian religion, and, her name being changed to Eudocia, betroths her to her brother Theodosius, adorns her with the diadem,

and calls her Augusta. In the Alexandrian Chronicle the father of Eudocia is called Heraclitus, perhaps because he had two names; and there Eudocia is said to have been declared Augusta in the year 423.

§ V. Of the deeds of St. Pulcheria against Nestorius, and for the happy outcome of the Council of Ephesus.

[ ] The chief praise of the Saint is her defence of the Church against heretics. Among the chief virtues of St. Pulcheria is numbered her fervent zeal for defending the Church and the Catholic faith against the assaults of heretics, as will become clear from the letters of St. Leo and of others, which we shall recite in their places. Hence to the holy counsels of Pulcheria may deservedly be attributed the very many laws which Theodosius passed on behalf of the Church, and against idolatry, against the Jews, against heretics both ancient and recent. But since those belong properly to the history of Theodosius, and were ascribed to him as emperor, I have determined to recall only those things which the Saint did piously, prudently and bravely against the heresies of Nestorius and Eutyches, which arose in her own time at Constantinople. Suidas in the Lexicon, p. 578, has it thus: Pulcheria so hated Nestorius that they (the Nestorians) who loved him spread a report that Nestorius was hateful to Pulcheria because Nestorius had accused Pulcheria of incest committed with her brother the emperor Theodosius. And on that account she pursued him with so great a hatred. Such accusations of heretics are as much a praise to that most chaste Virgin as the elogia of Catholics: for those calumnies lack all foundation and likelihood of truth, and clearly show how greatly the holy Empress abhorred the impiety of Nestorius.

[33] That Nestorius was in the year 428 raised by the emperor Theodosius to the episcopate of Constantinople as a sound Catholic; [Nestorius the heresiarch had at first Theodosius favouring him, but not Pulcheria,] but not long after he began to teach and publish his heresy, everywhere known to the learned, many being indignant and at once opposing him. But Theodosius himself seems at first to have favoured Nestorius. Certainly Basil, deacon and archimandrite, with his followers, whom Nestorius was persecuting, in the Supplication to the emperors Theodosius and Valentinian, in Labbe, tom. 3 of the Councils, col. 329, speaks thus of Nestorius: And, to say freely what the case is, he does these things relying also upon your lordship. Nevertheless Theodosius does not seem to have consented to the Nestorian doctrine, but only in some fashion to have favoured Nestorius, who was not yet sufficiently known. Not so could the heresiarch impose upon the holy Empress: certainly there is no reason why we should suspect that St. Pulcheria was ever deceived by his hypocrisy: for Cyril, presently to be cited, says that she was adorned with a right faith wavering to no side; whereas the same writer did not so speak at that time about Theodosius. This perhaps was the reason why St. Cyril of Alexandria, who together with Pope Celestine was vehemently opposing Nestorius, in the year 430 directed one writing to Theodosius and another to the virgin queens, among whom Pulcheria held the chief place. Both are on the right faith against the doctrines of Nestorius. Both are extant in Labbe, tom. 3 of the Councils, namely col. 46 and following, and col. 106 and following.

[34] The beginning of that which is directed to St. Pulcheria and her two sisters I transfer hither, that the studious reader may see how highly St. Cyril esteemed their virtues. Truly one might with the best right call you, the sacred and most chaste brides of Christ the Saviour of us all (most religious Empresses, and most beloved of God), the ornament of the world and the glory of the most holy churches: in whom, namely, every kind of virtue and every adornment pleasing and acceptable to the eyes of the divine Majesty shines forth wondrously. Nor content with these riches, you also apply all care and all zeal to excel in a right faith wavering to no side; mindful doubtless of what the most wise dispenser of the mysteries of Christ and teacher of the nations, Paul, writes: Therefore, my beloved brethren, he says, be steadfast and immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord: since where a right and blameless faith is joined with the honourableness of good actions, and is coupled with them in an even effort and course, there the perfection of every good and the integrity of sanctification is found. Wherefore we frankly confess, and do not blush to confess, that we cannot bring to your glory and renown a worthiness of speech equal to it: whence we shall deservedly be judged worthy of pardon too, if we fear to praise those things whose excellence we do not think ourselves able to attain. And indeed, if we had the ability of performing with praise that which we desire to perform, we should assuredly be justly accused if, thinking too anxiously of our own weakness, we should act too hesitantly; nor could we escape the charge of sloth, as men who, using silence, should rather beget trouble and sadness for those whom for their virtue we ought to have adorned with the deserved proclamation of praises. But since we have already before complained and confessed our weakness and fear in speaking, and have declared ourselves unequal to so great a burden, you will the rather bear the blame of this silence, who are so illustrious and so conspicuous that your virtues and right deeds far surpass the eloquence of all orators.

[35] celebrating their faith and other virtues with a notable elogium. For your royal race has been propagated even from the beginning through a long series of times down to this day, and, as we believe, will still further be propagated hereafter; and you strive also to lay hold of the kingdom of Christ, and to do and to feel the things that are pleasing to Him — partly indeed excelling by illustrious actions and a blameless faith, as we said a little before; partly adorning your royal courts with the glory of virginity; partly, finally, raising most costly churches to Christ. For this zeal of piety too, among the rest, He has imparted to your holy souls. Therefore, to bring forth something also from the sacred Writings: Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say, rejoice. Let your modesty be known to all men. Nay rather, it has long since been published abroad and become widely known among all the men of all cities and regions; and, almost like a certain painted tablet bearing upon it the loveliness of piety toward Christ and shining far and wide, it has stirred the admiration of all. And I judged that I should be doing something worth the labour if to you, the truly holy brides of Christ (although you seem abundantly furnished for every good work), I should dedicate this little book, not long ago composed by me, as a kind of spiritual gift; which indeed will bring to its readers, as I think, no contemptible fruit of usefulness. Thus far St. Cyril, who then subjoins a long disputation. But lest anyone should suspect that Cyril used some exaggeration, not to say flattery, let him read the same author's preface to Theodosius, and he will sufficiently notice that neither the virtues of Theodosius nor his zeal for the right faith are so extolled — so that Cyril seems then to have doubted of his faith on account of the favour shown to Nestorius. Wherefore of the doctrines of Nestorius may be understood the words of Sozomen, book 9, chap. 1, where he says of Pulcheria: Besides, when religion seemed likely to be disturbed by adulterate doctrines, she herself zealously and wisely provided against it. Certainly we shall find that she was the cause why new heresies did not at all prevail in our age, as will be more openly known in what follows. If we had what Sozomen here promises, we should clearly perceive how greatly she laboured against the Nestorian heresy; but we do not find it in the History of Sozomen, because some of his writings have perished.

[36] Cyril at the same time writes a book to Theodosius, who takes it ill: Further, from the little book to Theodosius, num. 4, it is clear that this too was composed for the empresses Eudocia and Pulcheria, of which last Cyril speaks thus: But the other, a young woman among the virginal gems (in Greek συνακμάζουοα, vigorous or flourishing), has in common with you the cares of your most illustrious realm. Nevertheless, since the other book had been written for Pulcheria alone and her sisters, Theodosius believed that this one was written for himself and his wife, and the other for Pulcheria, and he suggests that he took this very ill in his letter to Cyril, in the said Labbe, col. 433. For he sharply rebukes Cyril and accuses him, as though he had believed that there was a dissension between himself and Pulcheria, or wished to stir one up: Nor indeed is it any wonder, he says, that one who has exceeded measure should not have limited his attempts to those matters which concern the churches and the priests, but should have believed something also about ourselves unworthy of our piety. For unless you had thought that there was some dissension between us, or at any rate had hoped that something of the kind would arise from your letters, why, I ask, would you have written one thing privately to us and to Eudocia my most religious wife, and another to Pulcheria my sister Augusta, who is likewise most zealous for piety? St. Cyril afterwards answered that letter of Theodosius by an apologetic little book, which the same Labbe published, col. [ ] and following; and there he affirms that the faith of Theodosius had not been corrupted. Nevertheless from what has been said it is clear that Nestorius himself was too dear to Theodosius, until he was condemned in the Council of Ephesus.

[37] But St. Pulcheria received the doctrine of St. Cyril more rightly, so that the holy doctor directed a second book on the same matter to the queens. Cyril's second book to Pulcheria and her Sisters. In this, in Labbe, col. 227, he addresses them thus: How would it not have been absurd to keep silence before you, and to be unwilling to instil from time to time into your pious ears the knowledge of the sacred Writings, like a certain sweet and life-giving stream? … Behold, then, most piety-loving queens, I offer you the book which I have written on the right and blameless faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, such as yours ought to be. For it befits you, who are especially devoted to holiness and piety, to be crowned, together with the highest summit of sovereignty, with the crown also of the charity which is in Christ. For this has already been fitted to your venerable heads, and the Lord of all adorns you with a glory that will never perish. Yet that you may be still more adorned, receiving the mystery of Christ by an exact and in no way adulterated knowledge, I have composed a little discourse, etc. Tillemont, tom. 14, in St. Cyril, art. 32, asserts that this book was directed by Cyril to Pulcheria and Eudocia. I too should so judge, if this book alone inscribed to the queens were extant, since the sisters of St. Pulcheria do not seem ever to have been called Augustæ or empresses. But since in the preceding book he distinguished Pulcheria and her sisters by the same titles which Cyril uses in the second, and since both books are inscribed Ταῖς εὐσεβετάταις βασιλίσσαις, to the most religious queens, or rather empresses, I do not see why we should believe that both books were not directed to the same persons.

[38] It is not worth examining the whole history of the Council of Ephesus, [Since there were great tumults in the Council of Ephesus, in which Nestorius was condemned;] in which Nestorius was condemned, but not without the gravest tumults and dangers to the Catholic bishops, because Nestorius had powerful supporters, and there was much dissension among the Catholic prelates themselves. What was discussed of these matters by us at the XXVIII of January, in St. Cyril of Alexandria, may be seen. It is here pleasing to consider only this: how much the piety and prudence of St. Pulcheria seem to have profited

toward the happy outcome of the council: for most writers attribute to her diligence the fact that Theodosius, long deceived by the supporters of Nestorius, at length opened his eyes and defended the side of the Catholics, and that the Catholic Church triumphed over impiety.

[39] St. Leo the Great, a witness certainly beyond all exception, Pulcheria laboured for the happy outcome of the council in his Letter to Pulcheria (which is the 39th in the Paris edition of the year 1618, but in the new edition of the year 1675, which I shall cite as fuller, is now the 59th) writes thus to the Saint: What we have always presumed of the holy mind of your piety, that we have most fully learned by experience: that the Christian faith, though assailed by the various snares of the perverse, cannot nevertheless be disturbed while you are present and prepared by the Lord for its defence. For God does not desert either the Sacrament * of His own mercy or the merit of your labour, by which you long since drove the crafty enemy of holy Religion from the very bowels of the Church, when Nestorian impiety could not defend its heresy, because it did not deceive the Handmaid and Disciple of truth as to how much venom was being poured into simple souls through those coloured lies of a talkative man. So the holy Leo, after the Eutychian heresy had been condemned by the same Saint's exertions, and therefore he attributes to Pulcheria, through all the parts of the world in which the Gospel of the Lord is preached, a twofold palm already … and crown. Other Letters of Leo will give more in their places, from which the same is sufficiently gathered.

[40] and brought it about that Nestorius was condemned Hence also in the synod of Chalcedon, in Labbe, tom. 4, col. 102, many bishops cried out: The Augusta cast out Nestorius: many years to the Catholic Augusta (in Greek, to the Catholic woman). And again in the fifth Session, col. 557: The Augusta drove out Nestorius. Sozomen, cited above, agrees when he says that she was the cause why the heresies did not at all prevail. The Letter of Epiphanius to St. Maximian, the successor of Nestorius in the see of Constantinople, published by Baluze in the Supplement of the councils, col. 907, shows that St. Pulcheria even exposed herself to danger. For, since the dissension between St. Cyril of Alexandria and John of Antioch had not yet been removed, and John had not yet been willing to condemn Nestorius, Epiphanius asks Maximian to plead with Pulcheria for Cyril, and uses these words: Hasten therefore, most holy one, yourself also to make supplication to the lady handmaid of God Pulcheria Augusta, that she may again lay down her soul for the Lord Christ (for I think that she is not now sufficiently concerned for your most holy brother Cyril …), that she may write reprovingly to John, so that not even the memory of that impious man (Nestorius) may remain; and let it also be written to the most magnificent Aristolaus, that he may urge him (John) speedily. From these words I gather, first, that St. Pulcheria acted so bravely against Nestorius that the matter was not without danger — either because she could thus have incurred the hatred of Theodosius, or for some other cause.

[41] even by the Orientals, who had refused to do so in the council: Secondly, from these words it is also plain that St. Cyril laboured greatly with Pulcheria, that she should see to it that Nestorius should be condemned also by John of Antioch and by the Orientals who adhered to him, so that peace might be concluded with them. For not only did Epiphanius, Cyril's archdeacon, write on that matter to Maximian, but Cyril himself also wrote to St. Pulcheria, as is read in the same letter in these words: It has been written by my lord your brother (Cyril) and to the lady handmaid of God, the most reverend Pulcheria. Besides, Epiphanius asks Maximian to see to it through Pulcheria that Chrysoretes the chamberlain, who was powerful with Theodosius and who continued to favour Nestorius, should be removed. I subjoin the words: But let your holiness hasten to ask the lady Pulcheria to cause the lord Lausus to enter and become chamberlain, that the power of Chrysoretes may be dissolved, and thus our doctrine may be strengthened. Thirdly, the Aristolaus mentioned above had been sent by Theodosius into the East, that he might see to the reconciling of the Orientals with Cyril, and the condemnation of Nestorius by them also. Further, since all those things were happily accomplished, it is likely that the labour of St. Pulcheria was of great profit also toward the reconciling of John of Antioch and the other Oriental bishops with St. Cyril.

[42] For the rest, from the words of Epiphanius the archdeacon just cited — For I think that she (Pulcheria) is not now sufficiently concerned for … Cyril — the Saint never favoured Nestorius, as is proved. a suspicion may arise that the Saint did not always equally support the cause of St. Cyril. Yet that suspicion will have no solid foundation: for when Cyril in his own person, and Epiphanius the archdeacon through Maximian, had recourse to Pulcheria, they sufficiently intimated that they greatly trusted her goodwill. It may more be doubted whether before the condemnation of Nestorius the Saint was always so devoted to Cyril; since Cyril, in his Encomium on holy Mary the Mother of God, tom. 5 of the Works, p. 382, says of Nestorius: For this man, this accursed man, having emptied his golden quiver, stirred up consuls and counts and masters, and the choir of the queens. But from these words indeed it may seem likely that Pulcheria favoured Nestorius before his condemnation; whereas Leo, cited above, and Sozomen clearly say that it was through Pulcheria that the Nestorian heresy was prevented from prevailing. And so Nestorius may have tried and stirred up the queens; and since there were four to whom Cyril gives that name, perhaps he could also have rendered some of them favourable to himself at first, as he did in fact have Theodosius favourable; but that is not likely of the most wise Pulcheria, nor is it anywhere said of her by name. On the contrary St. Leo, in the words given at num. 39, clearly denies that Pulcheria was ever deceived by Nestorius. Nay, that not even the Sisters of Pulcheria were ever devoted to Nestorius, after he had begun to publish his heresy, appears to me more probable. Certainly Cyril speaks in one way about the queens, in another about the counts. For of the latter he says beforehand these words: And so that wicked and blasphemous man, seeing that he was defended by the counts, was puffed up with confidence in them. But he does not say that he was defended by the queens, much less by St. Pulcheria.

* elsewhere, "of faith"

§ VI. Other deeds of the Saint, namely Theodosius skilfully corrected: the translation of some relics; and also the invention of the relics of the martyrs of Sebaste through a revelation to the Saint.

[ ] What was lacking to her authority the Saint supplied by wondrous prudence, What has just been discussed concerning the happy outcome of the Council of Ephesus, and the condemnation of the Nestorian impiety, and the peace happily established between St. Cyril and the Oriental bishops who opposed him together with John of Antioch, we do not so attribute to St. Pulcheria that we believe she accomplished it all by her own authority. For we altogether judge that that supreme authority with which she had administered the empire while Theodosius was a youth was not left to her by Theodosius down to the times of the Council of Ephesus; although she does not seem to have been wholly without authority even at that time. The opinion of Baronius therefore pleases us, who writes rightly of these matters at the year 431, p. 640: By a certain wondrous divine counsel it came about that through a Virgin, the bride of Christ, the Virgin Mother of God was vindicated from the blasphemies of Nestorius, when she led Theodosius, encircled and utterly overwhelmed by the deceits of the Nestorians, out of darkness into the clear light of truth. And so whatever he himself seemed from this time to have done for the Catholic faith yields to the praise of Pulcheria; but it is ascribed to the snares of the household servants if from time to time the Nestorians were allowed to act more freely. And so what she could not do by authority alone, she at length accomplished by prudence and constancy.

[44] by which she also corrected the negligence of Theodosius. By such an artifice the Saint corrected Theodosius, who used to sign petitions without even reading them. Suidas relates it at p. 577. His Latin translator set out his words somewhat more fully in this way: Theodosius was by nature careless and inconsiderate in all things indeed, but he especially bore himself so toward those who by petitions offered to him asked of him certain benefits, gifts or privileges. For without reading their writings he inconsiderately signed them. When the most wise Pulcheria had once noticed this, she cunningly came upon him, that is, circumvented him, when namely she received his wife Eudocia as given to her in gift into servitude, by her own petition offered to him, which he had signed without previously reading it. Wherefore he was afterwards sharply rebuked by Pulcheria. Zonaras, tom. 2, p. 44, relates the same event in these words: Pulcheria was a most prudent woman, who partly corrected and partly covered the many errors of her brother. He was certainly said to sign documents inconsiderately. When she admonished him not to do this, and to consider the sense of the documents, he affirmed that no fraud was being contrived against him, and that he knew what the documents contained. Wherefore she used a contrivance of this sort to convict her brother of carelessness. In his name she composes a deed by which Eudocia Augusta should be sold to her, and, this being offered to the emperor as though it were something else, she brings it about that he signs it. Then, when Eudocia had been summoned by him, she does not let her go; and when the cause of the detention was asked, she produces the deed: and so she convicts him of signing very many things which he neither knows nor perhaps even wishes to be done. And then indeed that pretended sale being annulled, the wife is restored to the emperor. Other more recent writers agree, among whom Constantine Manasses, p. 56, says that Theodosius thereafter guarded himself against folly of that kind. But contemporaries recorded nothing of that deed of Pulcheria, which they could omit in order to spare Theodosius. Nor did anyone state the time; and hence it may be doubted whether it happened before or after the Council of Ephesus.

[45] The Saint is present at the translation of the body of St. Chrysostom, St. Proclus, created bishop of Constantinople in the year 434, began to think of translating to Constantinople the body of St. John Chrysostom, who had died in exile; and he really accomplished this in the year 438, as Socrates testifies, book 7, chap. 45, as will be more fully related in St. Chrysostom at the XIV of September. This one thing I here observe, that the emperor Theodosius and St. Pulcheria were present at the translation and at the solemnity, as Theophanes testifies at p. 80, where he says of Proclus: The same (relics of St. Chrysostom), brought in a public and crowded pomp of procession, with the emperor and the blessed Pulcheria accompanying, he laid in the church of the Apostles. There were also relics of other Saints translated to Constantinople in the time of St. Pulcheria, and it is altogether likely that she was present at their translation, although the writers have passed it over, as most were silent about her even in the translation of St. Chrysostom. Yet since I would assert nothing without suitable witnesses, I shall treat only of those translations in which writers testify that St. Pulcheria had a part.

[46] Theophanes at the twentieth year of Theodosius, which answers to the year 427 and 428, She is also said to have gone forth to meet the relics of St. Stephen: has it thus: In this year the pious emperor Theodosius, imitating the blessed Pulcheria, sent to the bishop of Jerusalem a great sum of money to be distributed to the needy, and also a golden cross set with precious stones, to be fixed in the holy place of Calvary. The prelate, meaning to repay these gifts with a return offering, presented by the hand of holy Passarion relics of the right hand of Stephen, the chief of the martyrs. When he had come as far as Chalcedon, the blessed Pulcheria beholds in a vision by night the holy

Stephen addressing her with these words: Do you see how your prayers have been heard, and how your petition, now fulfilled, has come as far as Chalcedon? Rising up, she went forth with her brother to meet the holy relics; and when at length these had been brought into the palace, she built a costly church to the holy leader of the martyrs, and laid the sacred gifts in it. But Tillemont, tom. 6 of the Emperors, in Theodosius, art. 23, judges that no credit is to be given to these things, because Marcellinus seems to disagree about the time of the translation, and Theodore the Lector about the place in which the relics of St. Stephen were laid at Constantinople. Hence I have not given the account of Theophanes at the time designated by him; although Tillemont's opinion is by no means certain, and indeed is even less probable: for there could have been a twofold translation of some relics of St. Stephen. Tillemont's arguments must therefore be examined.

[47] Let us first hear Marcellinus, who writes this at the year 439: [it is discussed whether those relics were the ones brought by Eudocia, or others:] Eudocia, wife of the prince Theodosius, returned from Jerusalem to the royal city, bringing with her the relics of the most blessed Stephen the first martyr, which are venerated as placed in the basilica of St. Laurence. Socrates, book 7, chap. 47, makes mention of that journey of the empress Eudocia, and of the churches adorned by her when she was setting out thither and when she was returning; but he does not add even a word about relics carried by her to Constantinople. Wherefore neither ought we to wonder at the silence of some concerning the relics received by Pulcheria, since writers readily keep silence about such things. Theodore the Lector writes thus at p. 568: In his reign (Theodosius') the relics of the holy Stephen, Laurence and Agnes were laid in the martyrium of St. Laurence on the twenty-first day of the month of September; and on the same day their memory is celebrated there down to the present day. Marcellinus alone attributes to Eudocia the translation of the relics of St. Stephen, which nevertheless Tillemont believes sufficiently certain on his testimony. But since neither Marcellinus nor Theodore the Lector (who agrees with Marcellinus so far as to say that they were laid in the church of St. Laurence) explains in any way of what part of the body were those relics of St. Stephen which Eudocia brought, or which were laid in the church of St. Laurence, we may rightly suspect that it was only a small particle; and thus that the relics of St. Stephen of which Theophanes speaks are different, with whom agree Cedrenus, p. 337, and Nicephorus, tom. 2, p. 455.

[48] Further, various reasons can be brought forward for distinguishing the relics of St. Stephen and it is shown that it is more probable they were different: which the bishop of Jerusalem is said to have sent to Theodosius from those which Eudocia is said to have brought. For the former were relics of the right hand; the others were a particle nowhere named. The former the bishop of Jerusalem sent to Theodosius; the others the empress Eudocia herself received in Palestine. The former Passarion the chorepiscopus carried to Constantinople, who died in the year 428 or 429, as is gathered from the Life of St. Euthymius, tom. 2 of January, p. 308; the others are said to have been carried to Constantinople by Eudocia ten years later at the least. The arrival of the former is said to have been revealed to St. Pulcheria; of the others that is not read. To the former, honourably brought into the palace, St. Pulcheria built a church, which was very well known and very famous, as Tillemont himself testifies, tom. 2, in St. Stephen, art. 10, in these words: That church of St. Stephen which was in the palace, and which is said to have been built by Pulcheria, is famous in the histories, because many emperors and empresses were crowned there. But the relics brought by Eudocia are not said to have been honoured with a church of St. Stephen's own, but to have been laid in the martyrium of St. Laurence. All these things the more suggest a twofold translation of different relics of St. Stephen, in that we can the less wonder that some relics of a body lately found should have been sent by the bishop to a pious emperor, and that afterwards something else should have been given to the empress when present at Jerusalem.

[49] Tillemont's objections are refuted. Nevertheless Tillemont in various places contends that those translations are not to be distinguished, and disputes much, especially in note 7 on St. Stephen, to show that the former, which I said was asserted by Theophanes, Cedrenus and Nicephorus, is wholly unworthy of credit. First he says that Baronius doubts of that history at the year 439, num. 2 and 3. I answer that Baronius rightly doubts of it in some fashion, because he had not read Theophanes, but only Cedrenus and Nicephorus, far more recent writers; but that we have not the same reason for doubting, who have Theophanes, published after the times of Baronius. Then Tillemont says that he does not grasp why the empress Eudocia should have placed her relics of St. Stephen in the church of St. Laurence, if already in the year 439 there existed at Constantinople some church of St. Stephen. I answer that Eudocia could have done this because the church or oratory of St. Stephen already had relics of that Saint. Wherefore, since he did not dare to deny that some oratory of St. Stephen was built by Pulcheria in the palace, and since many writers affirm it with Du Cange in Christian Constantinople, p. 136, he could not bring an argument by which the very thing he attacks should be made more likely. For no reason could more and more rightly have moved Eudocia to hand over the relics of St. Stephen to another church than that other relics of that Saint were already venerated in a church of his own.

[50] The relics of the forty holy martyrs, Of the invention of the relics of the forty holy martyrs of Sebaste, which happened in an uncertain year about the time in which we are engaged, Sozomen gave a full account, book 9, chap. 2. But since that whole account was given by us at the IX of March after the Acts of the Forty Holy Martyrs, I shall transfer hither only those things which most nearly concern St. Pulcheria. Of her Sozomen speaks thus in chap. 1: And the several things by which it can be shown that the emperor's Sister was dear to God I willingly pass over here, lest perhaps someone should accuse me, who have taken up another subject of writing, of turning aside to praises and encomia. But that which of itself seems to me both suitable to ecclesiastical history and a clear proof of the divine love toward her, I shall recall in this place, although it happened somewhat later. Presently in chap. 2 he begins to relate in what manner the said relics had been laid near Constantinople, where afterwards the church of St. Thyrsus had been built. Then he goes on thus: Further, that the aforesaid place should be destroyed, and that so great a space of time should pass by, God, in my judgment at least, permitted of set purpose, that He might render both the invention of the martyrs and His own goodwill toward the woman who found them more wonderful and more illustrious.

[51] And that finder was Pulcheria Augusta, the emperor's sister. after a revelation made to her from heaven, the Saint finds, For when the admirable Thyrsus had appeared to her three times, he indicated the martyrs who lay hidden beneath the earth, and directed that they should be translated to him, that they might enjoy the same laying-to-rest and the same veneration as he himself. The forty martyrs also, clothed in white garments, made themselves known to her at the same time. To these things he adds the difficulty of the matter, and sets out by whose report it was established that those things which God had revealed to the Augusta were true, and how, at her bidding, they began to search, and by digging came to the sacred relics. At length he recounts the invention and translation thus: When these things had been announced, at once the Augusta and the bishop hasten to the martyr's basilica. And immediately, the iron bands being removed on every side by the work of craftsmen, the lid was thereafter easily drawn off. Beneath it a great quantity of ointments was found, and among them two silver boxes, in which the sacred relics were laid up. And then indeed the Augusta, having made a prayer, gave thanks to God that He had deemed her worthy of so great a vision, and that she had at last found the sacred relics.

[52] But afterwards, when she had honoured the martyrs with a most precious casket, and translates them enclosed in a precious shrine. she laid them beside the admirable Thyrsus with a public festival, as was fitting, and with a solemn pomp celebrated with psalmody and with the appropriate ceremony; at which I too was present. And that these things were done in this manner those will testify who were present at the festival: for nearly all are still alive. For these things happened long afterwards, when Proclus was administering the church of Constantinople. And so between the year 434 and 446: for at that time St. Proclus presided over the church of Constantinople. In the Paschal Chronicle the invention is wrongly referred to the year 451, by which time Proclus had long been dead. Further, Sozomen in chap. 3 subjoins this concerning the revelations of St. Pulcheria: But in other matters too God is said often to have foretold to the Augusta what was to come; and the report is that many things happened both to her and to her sisters which bore witness to God's love toward them. Thus far Sozomen.

[53] To this time also belongs the notable elogium with which St. Proclus, in Oration 12, celebrated Pulcheria while she was still living. St. Proclus celebrates Pulcheria with a notable elogium. I append his words as they have been rendered into Latin: Marvel at the loftiness of soul of this Queen, pouring out (pouring out — read "of her who pours out") blessings upon all like a spiritual fountain. Of old indeed the Jews hurled stones at Stephen, with the intent to overwhelm the foremost soldier of the Crucified, the chief athlete and unconquered orator. But this Virgin, consecrating herself to Christ, has for religion's sake exhausted her treasures of riches by giving them away. She has mortified the raging motions of her flesh; she has kept the Crucified continually in the bridal chamber of her soul; she has elegantly adorned an earthly heaven, namely this temple which we behold with our eyes. She confesses that the sepulchre is the treasure of salvation; rejoicing she glories in the cross, by which the ancient bond was torn asunder, etc. Vincentius Ricchardus in his Annotations understands all these things of St. Pulcheria, nor can they rightly be expounded of any other; although it cannot be said with certainty on what occasion St. Proclus broke forth into these praises of her. The said Ricchardus indeed judges, at p. 396, and Tillemont with him, that they were spoken on account of the adorning of the church of St. Sophia, because the bishops were wont to deliver discourses in that chief church. But since the orator recalls the stoning of St. Stephen, and sets against it the illustrious works of St. Pulcheria, perhaps we shall suspect with more probability that all was spoken on account of the founding of the church of St. Stephen. Whatever the cause may have been, the holy prelate celebrated the holy Empress with true praises.

§ VII. Pulcheria, whom no one of the Greeks accuses of rivalry against Eudocia, of her own accord leaves the court through the machinations of Chrysaphius and Eudocia, and lives a private life; but is afterwards recalled by Theodosius, Chrysaphius having been driven into exile.

[ ] St. Pulcheria is said to have lived for some time outside the court: Although contemporary writers say nothing at all about St. Pulcheria's leaving the court of Theodosius, because the chief of them did not carry their history down to that time, yet from the testimony of others who wrote in the middle age there seems to be no room for doubt that the Saint lived for some time outside the court, and then abstained from the administration of the empire. For in this Theophanes, Zonaras, Cedrenus and other more recent Greeks agree; but they do not relate either the time or the cause of her leaving the court so consistently or so accurately that the truth clearly shines forth.

Besides, it is certainly established that there were grave quarrels between Theodosius and Eudocia his wife, and that on account of them Eudocia set out for Jerusalem and there ended her life; but neither is the time or the beginning of these quarrels certainly known. Baronius, at the year 446, believes that it was brought about by the machinations of the eunuch Chrysaphius and at the same time of Eudocia Augusta that St. Pulcheria left the court.

[55] [and this is believed to have been done by the guile of Chrysaphius and the rivalry of Eudocia.] Johann Philipp Vorburg, tom. 5 of the Histories, at the year 439, p. 110, and elsewhere, not only attributes the withdrawal of Pulcheria to Eudocia, but conversely ascribes no small rivalry to Pulcheria, and hands down that it was brought about by her that Eudocia was at last shut out from the court for ever. He cites for these things the Annals of Baronius, who writes nothing of the sort about Pulcheria, just as no other writers accuse Pulcheria of that rivalry. Wherefore rashly were these things said of the holy Empress, whom no one of the ancients, no one of the writers of the middle age, nay not even any of the more recent Greeks, accused of such rivalry — rashly, I say, and without any foundation, as Tillemont also observed. But that Eudocia — whether she was deceived by Chrysaphius, or bore it ill that Pulcheria's authority was far greater than her own — was not free from all fault, is agreed by Theophanes, Zonaras, Cedrenus, Nicephorus and others, with whom Baronius assents. Their opinion indeed Tillemont did not admit; but we shall examine below the arguments with which he attacked it.

[56] Meanwhile let us hear Theophanes at the 40th year of Theodosius, [Chrysaphius, hostile to St. Flavian, strives by the help of Eudocia to remove Pulcheria,] which coincides with the year of Christ 447 and 448. First he explains for what cause Chrysaphius the eunuch, having obtained the highest power in the palace and with the emperor, was embittered against St. Flavian, bishop of Constantinople, who had succeeded St. Proclus: of which matter no knowledge was brought to Pulcheria. Then he goes on thus: Meanwhile Chrysaphius, brooding upon impiety in his mind, and being unable to look upon the concord of the churches, applies his zeal to disturbing them, and moves every stone to cast Flavian out of the episcopate, having taken counsel with himself to set over the church as bishop a certain Eutyches, an Archimandrite, who held the same evil opinion about the faith as himself. But since, while Pulcheria was administering the sum of affairs, he himself had no authority, he first insinuates himself into the untrained and inexperienced mind of Eudocia, and kindles the torches of envy for the ruin of his own mother, and suggests to her that she should carp at Pulcheria and accuse her before the emperor for the purpose of taking the chamberlain to herself. For Pulcheria necessarily required the joint service of the chamberlain in the conduct of business. The emperor, being importuned somewhat troublesomely by his wife, gives her this answer: Lay aside your anxiety of mind, for you cannot obtain the chamberlain; nor do I remove my Sister, who administers the affairs of the empire excellently, skilfully and with piety.

[57] Frustrated in his aims, Chrysaphius contrives another engine of deceits. and brings it about that she withdraws from the court of her own accord: He becomes Eudocia's adviser that she should weary the emperor with prayers, and obtain that Pulcheria, whom they said had consecrated her virginity to God, should be ordained a Deaconess by the patriarch at his bidding. Thus Eudocia, becoming more frequent in her asking and more importunate in pressing her demands, drives the emperor's gentler mind to what she desired. Blessed Flavian, having received the emperor's command, foresees the evils that would arise from it if it were done, and is cast into anxiety. Yet he promises that he will be obedient to the emperor's words; and at the same time he signifies by letter to Pulcheria that she should not be admitted into his presence: Lest perhaps, he says, I be compelled to execute something concerning you which would not be willingly borne by you. She, gathering from the writing what was being prepared, yields the chamberlain to Eudocia's pleasure, and, withdrawing to the Hebdomon, lived a private life. Hence the indignation of the emperor and of Eudocia was stirred against Flavian, as one who had revealed a secret entrusted to him.

[58] For the rest, when Pulcheria had been driven to a private life but when Eudocia herself had become suspect to Theodosius, and Eudocia was bearing the care of affairs, something of this sort happened. There was a certain Paulinus, a man conspicuous for all learning and for beauty of form, exceedingly dear to Eudocia, with whom she was wont to deal more familiarly and to converse apart. But when on the day of the holy Theophany someone had offered the emperor an apple altogether choice and of astonishing size, he, marvelling at the fruit, sent it to Eudocia, and she gave it to Paulinus; and Paulinus two days later offered it to the emperor. The emperor, recognizing the apple, concealed it, and going to the Augusta said: By my safety, I adjure you, what has become of the apple which I gave you? So may you be safe, said she, I ate it. The emperor, turned to anger, orders the apple to be brought out, and Paulinus to be driven into exile in Cappadocia and slain. Thus far Theophanes, who then asserts that Eudocia was stirred up by Chrysaphius against St. Flavian also, and that thence arose the conspiracy of Dioscorus and Chrysaphius on behalf of Eutyches against St. Flavian. Further, the said Theophanes relates, two years later, by what means St. Pulcheria was at last recalled to the court. If, then, his opinion is true, as I judge it to be true, the holy Empress had been removed from the administration of public affairs when the conventicle of Ephesus was held, of which we shall presently treat.

[59] and Chrysaphius had been banished by him, Pulcheria is recalled to the court; Meanwhile let us hear Theophanes again, at the 42nd year of Theodosius: In this year, he says, Theodosius, weighing his own affairs more accurately and recognizing that he had been circumvented by the frauds of Chrysaphius, conceived the utmost grief of mind for the impious crimes perpetrated against Flavian and for the injuries done to the other bishops. And so, breaking forth into anger, he first banishes Chrysaphius to a certain island; then he inveighs harshly upon Eudocia, whom he sharply rebuked, calling her the author of all the evils, who had cast Pulcheria out of the court, and he casts in her teeth besides, with reproaches, the things that had happened concerning Paulinus. She, her affairs being desperate, asks to be sent away to Jerusalem; and, taking as companions of her journey Severus the presbyter and John the deacon, sets out for Jerusalem. But the emperor, hearing that they had gone to her rather frequently in the city before, and were now found with her at Jerusalem, and moreover were being enriched by her with many gifts, sent letters and ordered them to be beheaded. Then at last he brought back the blessed Pulcheria to the court, entreated with many prayers; and she immediately sent to Ephesus men who should carry away the body of holy Flavian, and should bring it, escorted with a great train of pomp through the middle of the city, to be buried in the church of the holy apostles. So Theophanes, with whom Nicephorus agrees in nearly everything, book 14, chaps. 47 and 49, where however he wrongly asserts — unless it be a fault of the copyists — that Pulcheria was recalled in the seventh year of her absence, since that contradicts his own words: for Theodosius did not live so many years after Flavian had begun to administer the episcopate.

[60] as Zonaras relates with Theophanes. Zonaras, tom. 2, p. 44, writes more briefly of Pulcheria's being sent away from the court and recalled, but designates plainly the same time. I subjoin his words: The same Chrysaphius, having also taken Eudocia as his helper, mocking the pliancy of the prince, persuades him that Pulcheria too should be removed from the administration of affairs. She therefore, leaving the court, lives a private life and rests in the Hebdomon. But the emperor (after the conventicle of Ephesus, in which St. Flavian was condemned and most wickedly maltreated), scarcely at length returning to a sound mind, having considered both the wicked slaying of Flavian and the denunciation of Pulcheria, moved with just indignation against the eunuch, who was known to be the author of all these things, banishes the man, his goods being confiscated, and, having asked pardon, recalls his Sister. So he, relating separately below the history of the apple, on account of which Paulinus was killed and Eudocia became suspect to Theodosius, as also Nicephorus, book 4, chap. 43, and Cedrenus, p. 337, separated that event from the others.

[61] Cedrenus and others. And he, at p. 343, after relating the conventicle of Ephesus, subjoins the following concerning Pulcheria's recall to the court: In the next following year, which was the forty-second, Theodosius, perceiving that he had been deceived by Chrysaphius, banishes him to a certain island. He also sharply rebukes Eudocia Augusta, saying that she was the cause of all the evils, and that by her Pulcheria had been driven from the court; and at the same time reproaching her with Paulinus, whom we have shown to have been killed on account of the apple. Eudocia, not bearing the indignity of the matter, asked that she might be allowed to depart to Jerusalem; and having obtained this, she betook herself thither, with Severus the presbyter and John the deacon as companions. The emperor, learning that they had frequently visited her in the city also, sent executioners and ordered their heads to be cut off. But holy Pulcheria he consoled with many words and brought back to the court. She immediately sent to Ephesus men who should bring the body of holy Flavian. From all these things I conclude that St. Pulcheria in the year 447 or 448 withdrew from the court to the Hebdomon, which was a palace near Constantinople, and remained there until almost the end of the year 449 or the beginning of the next. Secondly, that although Chrysaphius was the chief author of that withdrawal, Eudocia nevertheless seems also to have contributed something, and consequently was not yet at that time in Palestine. But I willingly confess that the things which are related about Eudocia are not equally certain, nor are certain other circumstances.

§ VIII. What has been related about the withdrawal of St. Pulcheria is defended against Tillemont: how long the Saint was absent from the court.

[ ] Tillemont attacks what has just been related from Theophanes as fictitious. Tillemont, tom. 15, in St. Leo, art. 15, relates some things about the attempt of Chrysaphius to remove Pulcheria from the administration; but he omits many things, and asserts that some circumstances related by Theophanes are little probable, and others by no means defensible, and finally that it is to be feared lest that account of Theophanes should be as false in the sum of the matter itself as he certainly believes it to be false in some of its circumstances. Grave indeed is this censure; but it must be weighed whether the reasons of Tillemont are so solid that it is necessary to agree with this censure. First he objects that in the years 447, 449 and 450 letters were addressed to Pulcheria as to a person who had a part in the administration of affairs — not, however, so great a part as she ought to have had for the good of the Church. That this argument may be discussed more accurately, I shall recount the letters which Tillemont himself wrote were addressed to St. Pulcheria about those years, and indeed some others as well which he judges were sent earlier, because at least in some fashion they belong to the Life of the Saint.

[63] In St. Isidore of Pelusium, art. 9, he believes that his letter 143 of the fourth book, Letters addressed to the Saint before the year 447 which lacks an inscription, was addressed to St. Pulcheria. This seems probable to me, because in that letter, after St. Isidore had made mention of the emperor, he adds: and also, when we had learned of the health and safety of your pious empire, being filled with the greatest gladness, we poured forth glory and thanksgiving to our God with every nerve strained, etc. For from these words he seems to be writing to someone who ruled together with the emperor Theodosius, so that either Pulcheria or Eudocia must necessarily be understood. But to whomever the letter was written, it was probably sent before the year 447. The same author, in Pulcheria, p. 178, observes that Theodoret wrote to her the Letter

43, that the city of Cyrus should not be burdened with heavier taxes; but he himself acknowledges that this was written about the year 445, so that it does not bear on our purpose. It is worth giving, nevertheless, the beginning of that letter, where Theodoret says: Because you adorn the empire with piety and make the purple illustrious by faith, we dare to write, and do not consider our own slightness, because you pay the honour due to the priesthood.

[64] [others perhaps sent in the year 447, but certainly before the time at which the Saint withdrew.] But Tillemont judges, at p. 178, that the Asian bishops and the clergy of Ephesus in the year 447 or 448 wrote on behalf of Bassian, bishop of Ephesus, to Theodosius and to Pulcheria, and that she also replied. He gathers this from what is found in tom. 4 of the Councils, col. 689, in the dispute of Bassian and Stephen contending about the episcopate of Ephesus in the Council of Chalcedon. But I do not see that anything certain about Pulcheria can be drawn out of what is read there. For, first, not even the time of the sending of that report to the court is sufficiently established, since the words are very obscure; nor is it likely that the bishops wrote to the court about the peace of the church of Ephesus after Bassian had sat peacefully for four years, as Tillemont understands the passage. Besides, if it were altogether established that that letter was written by the Oriental bishops to Theodosius and Pulcheria, and that these replied to the bishops' letter after Bassian had sat peacefully four years, all those letters would necessarily have to be referred to the earlier months of the year 447, that is, to that time when St. Pulcheria had not yet withdrawn. This is sufficiently gathered from the very things which Tillemont discusses in note 10 on St. Leo concerning the time of Bassian's deposition. For Bassian in Labbe, col. 696, is said to have been shut up in prison on the fifth day of Easter week, that is, on the XXIV of April of the year 447; then, after three months of examination, he was deposed, as is said at col. 689. He was deposed, therefore, toward the end of July. And so, since Cassian the presbyter said in the year 451, in the month of October, in the Council of Chalcedon, that after that time he had wandered and begged for four years at Constantinople, the deposition cannot be referred to any year but 447; and since all the letters preceded the imprisonment of Bassian, they were certainly sent before the Easter of the year 447, and before the withdrawal of Pulcheria.

[65] [The letter of St. Leo of the year 449 likewise proves nothing, since it did not reach the Saint.] Besides this letter, from which nothing at all is established, Tillemont brought forward no other before the conventicle of Ephesus which reached St. Pulcheria. Yet St. Leo did write to Pulcheria in the year 449 before the conventicle, and indeed a twofold copy is extant of Leo's letters to Pulcheria, which are dated on the Ides of June of the year 449, as we shall see below. But since that letter of St. Leo was not delivered to St. Pulcheria, and since she seems then to have had no care of the things that were done at Ephesus in the conventicle, it must altogether be said, as it seems, that St. Pulcheria at that time did not involve herself in public affairs, but led a private life. This very thing will appear more plainly below from the various letters addressed to the Saint, that she should render aid to the faith and to the Church, as she had always done before. These I shall give below. But that withdrawal of the Saint, of which it seems sufficiently established from the writers, so far from being able to be called into doubt by those letters of St. Leo and of others, is even the more confirmed by them. Certainly the faith of the Saint is wonderfully commended in them; and yet nowhere is it read that she opposed herself to the things which were wickedly and impiously done against the faith at Ephesus — which we should greatly wonder at, if she had at that time prevailed by any authority.

[66] The reasonings by which Tillemont attacks the account of Theophanes Tillemont, in note 5 on St. Leo, contends that it is not likely that Theodosius wished Flavian to consecrate Pulcheria a deaconess. But I do not see what in the account of Theophanes relating this could rightly have displeased Tillemont. On the contrary I clearly perceive that he attributes many things to Theophanes which he does not have. First he attacks the fact as though Theodosius had wished Pulcheria to be consecrated against her will. But Theophanes nowhere says this, nor was it necessary for Chrysaphius' intention that she should be consecrated altogether unwillingly, since such was St. Pulcheria's piety that she could easily have been brought to consent if St. Flavian had wished to persuade her of it. Theophanes says only that Flavian wrote to Pulcheria that she should not come to him, lest he be compelled to do what would not, he says, be willingly borne by you — according to the Greek, what would cause you grief. And so Tillemont here ascribes somewhat more to Theophanes than he said, because it is one thing to permit something unwillingly or with grief, and another to suffer something against one's will. But Tillemont departs far more widely from Theophanes when he adds: Theophanes asserts that Chrysaphius suggested to Theodosius that she (Pulcheria) wished it. He maintained that she wished it in order to embrace virginity. All these things are falsely and unskilfully attributed to Theophanes, and are wholly foreign to his mind. For Chrysaphius wished Eudocia to use this argument: Since Pulcheria is said to keep virginity, let her be ordained a deaconess.

[67] But Tillemont asks whether she would have had an impediment by which she would be hindered from the administration of affairs, if she had been ordained a deaconess. cannot convict it of falsehood. I answer that the deaconesses had duties proper to their state, which the Saint would have wished to discharge if she had been consecrated. By these, therefore, she would have been hindered from the administration of public affairs, which was moreover not suited to the state of deaconesses. Again Tillemont asks why Theodosius and Eudocia should be so angry with Flavian, when Pulcheria was withdrawing of her own accord from the administration of affairs, from which they desired her to be removed. I answer that they are said to have been angry because they believed a secret had been revealed. What he adds, that Theodosius is said to have acted in simplicity, deceived by the machinations of others, is again foreign to the mind of Theophanes, who affirms that Theodosius at length yielded to the frequent prayers of Eudocia, and consented that she should be consecrated — namely, that thus with less odium and without disgrace to himself the most illustrious Empress might be removed from the administration of the empire. And so that whole history coheres aptly in Theophanes, and has hitherto been ineptly attacked by Tillemont. But here he subjoins another argument, by which he maintains that Eudocia could not have been present at all those machinations. But if Eudocia had not been present at all, it could not thence be inferred that all the rest is false, since it could have been carried through by the guile of Chrysaphius. Take Tillemont's argument.

[68] Marcellinus Comes in the Chronicle at the year 440 has it thus: The authority of Marcellinus, who places the exile of Eudocia earlier, Paulinus, master of the offices, was put to death at Cæsarea of Cappadocia by order of the prince Theodosius. If this was truly done in the year 440, the history of Paulinus and Eudocia is wrongly referred by Theophanes to the time when St. Pulcheria was away from the court. Again Marcellinus at the year 444: Severus the presbyter and John the deacon, who were ministering to Eudocia the queen at the city of Ælia, were killed by Saturninus, count of the domestics, sent by the emperor Theodosius. Eudocia, stirred by I know not what grief, straightway slew Saturninus; and immediately, by the will of her husband the emperor, being stripped of her royal attendants, she remained at the city of Ælia to die there. These things likewise we have seen referred by Theophanes to another time. Hence Tillemont says that what is related by Theophanes about Paulinus and Eudocia at the time of St. Pulcheria's withdrawal is clearly fabulous, as if Marcellinus could not have erred about the time of the event as easily as Theophanes. Pagi, at the year 450, num. 3, alleges the words of Marcellinus, and says that the matter was related by him under a year not its own.

[69] [it seems it must be abandoned, since Priscus, a contemporary, seems contrary to it:] Truly Priscus, a contemporary writer, in the Excerpts on the embassies, p. 69, indicates that Saturninus, whom he calls Saturnillus, was killed after Theodosius had promised that he would give his daughter in marriage to a certain Constantius, secretary of Attila king of the Huns: which Tillemont himself, in Theodosius II, refers to the year 449. I transfer the words of Priscus hither: To this petition (of the aforesaid Constantius) the emperor had assented, and had promised that he would give him in marriage the daughter of Saturnillus, a man distinguished and adorned both in wealth and in birth. But Athenaïs, or Eudocia (for she was called by both names), killed Saturnillus; nor was it possible for the emperor to bring to accomplishment, through Zeno a man of consular rank, what he had promised, etc. These things, I say, indicate that Saturninus was killed after his daughter had been promised to Constantius. But since that promise cannot be fixed before the year 448, and rather is to be fixed with Tillemont in the year 449, the era of Marcellinus seems to be abandoned, who has none of the Greeks agreeing with him; just as Pagi already convicts Marcellinus of error.

[70] the other objections are of no moment. What Tillemont further objects is of little moment, or touches only the chronology of Nicephorus, who wrongly extends St. Pulcheria's withdrawal into the seventh year, and thence increases the years of Eudocia beyond the truth. But the chronological errors of that writer cannot make the account of Theophanes false, since this is free from those errors. One scruple therefore of Tillemont remains, who says that he does not understand what that chamberlain is who is said to have passed over from St. Pulcheria to Eudocius. I answer that by that passing nothing else is signified than that the chamberlain of the sacred bedchamber, whose dignity and power were great, and who before depended on St. Pulcheria and received her orders, was thenceforth commanded to obey Eudocia. What difficulty lies hidden in this matter I truly do not perceive. And so I trust that I have sufficiently answered each of Tillemont's objections.

[71] [The history of the apple which bred discord is to be referred to the year 448 or 449;] But it is worth inquiring also in what year that discord which arose from the apple, which was the occasion of death for Paulinus and of exile for Eudocia, seems to be fixed: for writers speak of it ambiguously. Marcellinus fixes the death of Paulinus in the year 440, as I have already said, but omits the cause of Paulinus' killing. The Paschal Chronicle has the whole history at the year 444, and indicates that Paulinus was not killed at once; but after relating the story of the apple it adds: From then on there came between them (Theodosius and Eudocia) a divorce and separation, and he thereafter held Paulinus suspect, and at length ordered him to be killed. And after the slaying of Paulinus, Eudocia departed to Jerusalem, as is there related at greater length. Zonaras, Cedrenus, Glycas and others relate the event without any note of a definite time. But Theophanes asserts in clear words that that discord arose from the apple when Pulcheria was leading a private life at the Hebdomon, so that according to the mind of Theophanes the beginning of the discord between Eudocia and Theodosius is to be fixed at the year 448 or 449, and the departure of Eudocia is to be referred to the year 449.

[52] and the departure of Eudocia to the year 449. Theodore the Lector, at the very beginning of the Excerpts, relates the death of Theodosius, and about Eudocia this is subjoined: Theodore also reports that Eudocia Augusta, having set out for Jerusalem, returned no more; and that Marina the virgin departed from among the living in the palace before her brother's death. From these things one might suppose that the departure of Eudocia

is placed by Theodore after the death of Theodosius, as it is placed in clear words by Zonaras, p. 45. But Theodore does not seem to mean this, but only to say that Eudocia, who had gone away before, did not return, as the Greek words can readily be expounded. But now from Priscus, Marcellinus and Theophanes it seems certain that Eudocia was at Jerusalem at least some months before the death of Theodosius, since she ordered Saturninus to be killed there, and for that cause was more severely treated by Theodosius. Nevertheless I judge it more probable that she did not depart before the conventicle of Ephesus and the hearing of the death of St. Flavian, although she probably lacked all authority as soon as she became suspect to Theodosius on account of the apple given to Paulinus. This whole chronology is that of Theophanes, whose account coheres aptly, as we have seen.

[73] Hence too I cannot assent to Pagi, who, though agreeing with Theophanes in nearly everything else, Pulcheria did not withdraw immediately after the promotion of St. Flavian, contends at the year 450, num. 4, that St. Pulcheria was recalled to the court, not after the fourth year of her withdrawal from it, as Baronius there has it, but only some months after she had incurred the displeasure of her brother Theodosius. I assent to Pagi indeed so far, that St. Pulcheria was not absent from the court for four years; but to an absence of only some months I can by no means assent, since his own proofs require nearly two years. He says that St. Proclus died in the year 447, but he could not make this certain: for our Henschen, at the XVIII of February in St. Flavian, and Cuper, in the Patriarchs of Constantinople before the first volume of August, in Proclus, refer that Saint's death far more probably to the year 446. Pagi says, secondly, that St. Pulcheria withdrew from the court after Flavian succeeded Proclus, and that Eudocia on the day of the Epiphany of the year 448 fell from the favour of Theodosius. But it is certain that St. Pulcheria did not withdraw immediately after the election of Flavian, since that rather seems to have happened some months, and perhaps a whole year, later: for various machinations of Chrysaphius went before; nor is it necessary to say that they were carried through in a few days, since Theophanes himself indicates the contrary and refers the promotion of Flavian to the 39th year of Theodosius, but the withdrawal of Pulcheria to the following year.

[74] Besides, just as from the account of Theophanes and others it is certain nor was she absent from the court only some months, but about two years. that Eudocia did not fall from the favour of Theodosius on the day of the Epiphany, but some days after the Epiphany, so it appears wholly uncertain whether this happened in the year 448 or 449. Equally uncertain, nay improbable, are the things which Pagi adds: that Theodosius, when the suspicion arose from the apple, immediately ordered Paulinus, master of the offices, to be killed, as we have shown, he says, at the year 447; that Eudocia not long after was ordered to set out for Jerusalem, and Pulcheria was recalled to the court. Pagi shows none of these things, nor could he show them, since they are all contrary to Theophanes, with whom others also agree in most points. From these things, therefore, he could rightly infer nothing about the return of Pulcheria to the court. Then of Pulcheria he subjoins the following: That toward the end of the following year of Christ 449, Eudocia having been driven out by the emperor, she returned to the court and again took up the administration of affairs, is shown by the letters of St. Leo directed to her, and by others which are read among the Leonine letters, which nevertheless were not sent before the year 449. Here I readily assent to Pagi, that Pulcheria returned toward the end of the year 449. But if she returned then, by Pagi's own reckoning she was absent from the court nearly two years; and this I hold to be true and to agree excellently with Theophanes. But this will be more fully explained when we bring forward the letters themselves, from which it will be plain how much the Saint's piety profited the Catholic Church.

§ IX. How much the Saint's withdrawal harmed the Church by reason of the tumultuous conventicle: how great was the hope of St. Leo and of others in St. Pulcheria for repairing the damages of the Church.

[ ] When St. Pulcheria had prudently withdrawn from the court, That St. Pulcheria withdrew from the court probably in the year 447, and wholly abstained from the administration of the empire until almost the end of the year 449, we have just shown. The Saint did this that she might yield to envy, and might not expose herself further to dangerous machinations: not commanded by the emperor, so far as I judge, but by prudent counsel and of her own will, as Theophanes has it, for the reasons already stated, and perhaps also that she might reserve herself for better times. She could also fear lest she should be compelled to lay down the administration of affairs unless she did it of her own accord. Wherefore there is no room for doubt that the most prudent Empress wisely withdrew herself from the court, especially since she could not foresee how great a disturbance of the Catholic faith and how great damages to the Church would arise from it. These evils indeed Pulcheria could have hindered if she had had that authority in the conduct of affairs which she had while Theodosius was young; but perhaps she could have effected little at that time, even if she had retained some sort of administration of the empire, because all things were done in the name of Theodosius, and Chrysaphius had obtained the highest power with Theodosius.

[76] the Church suffered enormous damage from the tumultuous council of Ephesus. Whatever would have happened had Pulcheria remained in the palace — which cannot be known — while she was leading a private life the Church suffered enormous damage. I shall briefly touch on the well-known history. Eutyches, an archimandrite of great name near Constantinople, fell into a heresy contrary to the Nestorian. For this cause St. Flavian in the year 448 gathered a council at Constantinople, and there the Eutychian heresy was condemned. The proud archimandrite did not acquiesce in this sentence, but wished a general council, and obtained that it should be assembled by the help of Chrysaphius, who together with him and with Dioscorus, bishop of Alexandria, was conspiring against St. Flavian. A synod therefore was held at Ephesus in the year 449; but there all things were done by force and fear, Dioscorus of Alexandria claiming all authority for himself through Chrysaphius, so that Eutyches was absolved by the conspirators, and St. Flavian was condemned with others and driven into exile. Theophanes adds, with others: And he (Flavian), moreover, even before the decree of deposition, being cast out with fists and kicks by the attendants of Dioscorus, exchanged life for death on the third day; and on the next day the bishops were driven to subscribe by the threats and swords of the soldiers held over them. Yet the legates of the Apostolic See did not subscribe, but contradicted everything.

[77] St. Leo, who was administering the supreme pontificate when he sent his legates to the synod, What St. Leo commended to the Saint before the conventicle: wrote various letters on that account, dated on the Ides of June of the year 449. But that which had been addressed to St. Pulcheria did not then reach her; but a copy of it, perhaps somewhat enlarged, he afterwards sent to the Saint. Certainly a twofold copy is extant dated on the Ides of June to Pulcheria, namely letters 27 and 30 among the Leonine letters of the new edition (formerly 13 and 18). Both are written to the same effect and in nearly the same words, except that in the former more is disputed against Eutyches, so that it may be believed that this was afterwards sent in place of the second, unless both were sent at the same time and committed to different bearers. Whatever the cause of the doubling may be, in the former Leo addresses Pulcheria thus: How great a protection the Lord has prepared for His Church in your Clemency we have often proved by many evidences. And whatever in our times priestly diligence has obtained against the assailants of Catholic truth has redounded chiefly to your glory, while, as you have learned by the teaching of the Holy Spirit, you subject your power in all things to Him by whose gift and protection you reign. Then he begins to set forth the heresy of Eutyches, writes about the council convoked, disapproving of it in some fashion, tells of the legates sent by himself, and toward the end speaks thus: And therefore, according to the custom of your piety, deign to labour that what blasphemous folly has brought forth against the singular sacrament of human salvation may be driven from the minds of all.

[78] When St. Leo had learned the unhappy outcome of the council, [after its unhappy outcome he writes to her, disapproving what was done at Ephesus,] and that his legates had not been able to reach St. Pulcheria to deliver the said letter to her, he wrote this again to the Saint in the same year, on the III Ides of October, which among the Leonine letters is the 41st, formerly the 26th. Leo the bishop, and the holy synod which has met in the city of Rome, to Pulcheria Augusta. If the letters which for the cause of the faith were sent by our clerics had reached your piety, it is certain that you, by the Lord's inspiration, could have furnished a remedy for these things which have been done against the faith. For when have you been wanting to the priests, when to the Christian religion or to the faith? But since those who were sent could so little reach your mildness that scarcely one of them, our deacon Hilary, escaping, has returned to us, we have judged that our writings must be repeated. And that our prayers may deserve to be the stronger, we have subjoined a copy of those very writings which did not reach your Clemency, beseeching you with fuller adjurations that, the harsher the deeds are which it befits you to withstand with royal power for the faith *, with the greater glory in which you excel you may have care of that religion, lest the integrity of the Catholic faith be violated by any occasion of human contentions. For those things which, a synod having been gathered at Ephesus, were believed to be about to be laid to rest and healed by the remedy of peace, have gone forward not only into greater losses of peace but (which is too much to be lamented) even into the ruin of that very faith by which we are Christians.

[79] And these indeed who were sent, one of whom, escaping the violence of the bishop of Alexandria who claimed all things for himself, in order to obtain another council in Italy, faithfully reported to us the order of what was done, cried out in the synod (as was fitting) against the fury rather than the judgment of one man; protesting that those things which were carried on by force and fear could not prejudice the sacraments of the Church and the very symbol instituted by the Apostles, nor could they be separated by any injury from that faith which they had brought most fully set forth and arranged from the See of the blessed apostle Peter to the holy synod. And since the reading of it was not allowed, though the bishops demanded it — namely, that with that faith removed which crowned patriarchs, prophets, apostles and martyrs, the generation of Jesus Christ our Lord according to the flesh, and the confession of His true death and resurrection (which we shudder to say) might be dissolved — we have written on this matter (as we could) to the most glorious prince, and, what is greatest, a Christian, a copy of whose letter we have likewise subjoined, that he should suffer the faith in which, reborn by the grace of God, he reigns, to be corrupted by no novelty; since Flavian the bishop persists in the communion of us all, and since no reason permits that this which was done without consideration of justice and against all discipline of the canons should be held ratified; and because the synod of Ephesus had not taken away the scandal of dissension but had increased it: concerning the holding of a council within Italy, and that a place should be appointed

and a time, all complaints and prejudgments of either party being suspended: so that all the things which had bred offence may be more diligently reconsidered, and that, without wound to the faith and without injury to religion, those priests who through helplessness were compelled to subscribe may return to the peace of Christ, and only the errors be taken away.

[80] she should be willing to urge this with the emperor. And that we may deserve to obtain this, may your piety, of a faith most approved by us, which has always aided the labours of the Church, deign to press our supplication with the most clement prince, an embassy having been specially committed to her by the most blessed apostle Peter: so that, before this civil and deadly war grows strong within the Church, he may, with God's help, grant the opportunity and the manner of restoring unity, knowing that whatever shall have been bestowed by his kindly disposition upon Catholic liberty will profit the strength of his own empire. Given the day before the Ides of October, in the consulship of the most illustrious men Asterius and Protogenes. That is, in the year 449. It may be doubted whether Pulcheria had already at that time returned to the court. Pagi believes she had then returned, writing thus at the year 450, num. 4: But if Pulcheria had then been groaning in the Hebdomon, the place of her exile, St. Leo would not have implored her aid against Eutyches, nor could she have shown her zeal against the assailants of Catholic truth. But by what witness will Pagi prove that Pulcheria was in the Hebdomon as in exile, since she withdrew there of her own accord, as Theophanes testifies? By what argument will he establish that she could not go to her brother the emperor whenever she wished? Certainly none of the ancients asserted that Theodosius was so alienated in mind from Pulcheria that he would neither see nor hear her, even though he had imprudently given her the cause for withdrawing.

[81] [From these and other letters it does not follow that Pulcheria was then living at court;] Wherefore from the letters written to Pulcheria we cannot safely infer that she had then returned to the court. Nay rather, if St. Leo knew that she was not living in the palace, he could write to her so forcibly that, kindled with zeal for the faith, she might betake herself to Theodosius, and by prayers, reasons, and the authority by which she always prevailed with him, might bring back into the way one who was straying and favouring heretics. Hence Leo exhorts her, not to decree anything by her own authority, but to act with Theodosius, as one to whom an Apostolic embassy has been specially committed. Hence St. Leo seems to have stirred up others also to write to Pulcheria, and to exhort her with united prayers to undertake the matter. Certainly St. Hilary joined his own letters, then a deacon of the Roman Church and afterwards Leo's successor in the pontificate, of whom I shall treat today. And he writes to the Saint that after the council he had wished to come to her to deliver to her the letter of St. Leo, but that he was compelled to flee from the council lest he should be forced to consent to Dioscorus, and had come to Rome through unknown and pathless places; and that there all that had been done at Ephesus was disapproved. I shall give the whole letter under St. Hilary the Pope.

[82] Hither I transfer only its end: Wherefore, most splendid Lady and most clement Augusta, nor that she had done anything against the Eutychians before these letters. your adorable piety ought not to abandon those things in which she willingly made a beginning, but to preserve them with religious zeal and with a constant will of the faith. So in Labbe, tom. 4 of the Councils, col. 52; but in Cotelier, tom. 1 of the Monuments of the Greek church, the same letter is extant in Greek and Latin, and there at p. 61 the words are expressed in Latin in this way: Wherefore, most splendid Lady and most clement Augusta, may your adorable piety, who ought not to abandon what has been begun, establish it with religious zeal for the sincere faith and with a constant mind. Tillemont, in Pulcheria, p. 178, gathers from the words adduced that Pulcheria had already begun to act in this cause for the faith, and that before that tumultuous council. But the words of Hilary do not establish this: for, if we follow the former reading, those words, in which she willingly made a beginning, seem to be explained of Pulcheria's earlier deeds for the faith, just like the words of St. Leo in the letter just given: For when have you been wanting to the priests, when to the Christian religion or to the faith? So too Galla Placidia in the letters presently to be given says: Therefore may your clemency, according to the Catholic faith, deign now likewise to act in concert with us, as she has always done. All ask that, as she had always before laboured for the faith — namely against the Nestorians — she should now do the same against the Eutychians; and by asking this they sufficiently indicate that the Saint had done nothing in that cause up to that time, at least nothing that had become known at Rome. If we seek the cause of St. Pulcheria's silence, we shall find no other than that she was not yet involving herself in public affairs.

[83] That she should again do this for the Catholic faith, Galla Placidia Augusta, Galla Placidia likewise writes to Pulcheria, mother of Valentinian III, joined her own letters to those of SS. Leo and Hilary. These, as they were published in tom. 4 of the Councils, col. 55, I here recite: Galla Placidia, most pious ever Augusta, to Ælia Pulcheria, most pious ever Augusta, her daughter. That we should desire equally to behold Rome with frequent visits, the cause for us is the religion we embrace, that we might present our presence at the resting-places of the Saints, who, it is certain, being set in the heavens according to their virtue, do not despise things below. And so we believe it to be sacrilege if we should refuse the order of the solemnities. When therefore we had given our presence to the blessed apostle Peter, there the most reverend Pope Leo, surrounded by a multitude of priests, first approached us according to the dignity of his place; who, because of the sadness of his groaning that came between, could not fully set forth his desire in words. Yet the constancy of the priest's wisdom prevailed, so that he restrained his tears a little and set forth in plain speech the cause of the violated faith, as its avenger. In which speech we learned that in our times the Catholic faith has been disturbed, which our forebears have kept from our divine father Constantine until now. For according to the will of a certain man something perverse is said to have been stirred up against the priest of Constantinople. And so we have learned that in the Council of Ephesus, in which no one kept the order of the priesthood nor its measure, all things were done without consideration of the Divinity, so far that presumption and injustice is said to have obtained force for the condemnation of certain men — things which in our times appear terrible. The faith, therefore, ought properly to prevail, most holy and venerable daughter Augusta.

[84] [that she should be willing to labour for the rescinding of what was done at Ephesus.] Therefore may your clemency, according to the Catholic faith, deign now likewise to act in concert with us, as she has always done: so that whatever was determined in that tumultuous and most wretched council may be removed with all strength; that, all things remaining entire, the cause of the episcopate may be sent to the Apostolic See, in which the first of the Apostles, blessed Peter, who also, receiving the keys of the kingdom of heaven, held the primacy of the priesthood. For we ought to attribute the primacy in all things to that immortal converse which has filled the whole world with the dominion of its own power, and has committed to our empire the world to be governed and preserved. Thus far the empress Galla Placidia, who — as also the emperor Valentinian III and his wife Eudoxia Augusta, the daughter of Theodosius himself — wrote on that matter to Theodosius, and asked that what had been ill done at Ephesus should be made void, and that a new council should be held in Italy. But Theodosius acquiesced neither in their prayers nor in their reasons, as is clear from his letters to Valentinian, to Galla Placidia and to Eudoxia, which are extant in tom. 4 of the Councils, col. 57 and following: for he says that all things were rightly carried through at Ephesus, and says that he has written more fully about everything to Leo; but this letter of his has not come down to posterity.

[85] The Saint promises her exertions, But Pulcheria, who probably had returned to the court before the aforesaid letters were brought to Constantinople — or at any rate who could have been stirred by them to return to the court and to deal with her brother Theodosius — wrote back to Leo in such terms as both begot joy in him and inspired great hope of repairing the damages of the Church. We do not have that letter of the holy Empress; but what it was we understand from letter 48, otherwise 31, of St. Leo, which he addressed to the Saint on the XVI of the Kalends of April of the year 450. Wherefore I subjoin it: Leo the bishop to Pulcheria Augusta. The writings of your piety have made me greatly rejoice and exult in the Lord; by which it is evidently shown how much you love the Catholic faith and how much you detest heretical error. For the heresy is exceedingly impious and hostile to the Gospel of truth, which attempts not to wound some part but to tear up the very foundations of the Christian religion: denying that the eternal Son of the eternal Father took true flesh of our nature from the womb of the blessed Virgin Mother, and striking with condemnation those who could be led away by no error from the Evangelical and apostolic Faith; and vainly pretending that it holds the faith of the Nicene synod, from which it is certain that it is a stranger, most glorious Augusta.

[86] by which promise St. Leo conceives great hope: Wherefore, since divine protection does not desert His Church, the Lord saying, Behold, I am with you all days even to the consummation of the world, and since at the same work and time the Spirit of God has kindled both the solicitude of your Clemency and the care of our heart, that we should both desire the same things concerning the remedies to be procured, what I asked before I now also ask more urgently, using a greater confidence in entreating, after I have received the support of your venerable exhortation; hoping that the mercy of God will be present, so that, your Clemency cooperating, the disease of that pestilent error may be taken away: that whatever, by His inspiration and help, can be done for salvation, may be accomplished with the praise of your faith; since human affairs cannot otherwise be safe, unless both royal and priestly authority defend what pertains to the divine confession. Given on the sixteenth of the Kalends of April, in the consulship of the most illustrious men Valentinian Augustus for the seventh time, and Avienus. So St. Leo the Pope. If anyone will now weigh that the preceding letter of St. Leo to Pulcheria is dated the III Ides of October of the year 449, and this one the XVI of the Kalends of April of the year 450, he will see that five months ran between the two, so that Leo's earlier letter could easily have reached Constantinople and Pulcheria's answer have reached Rome before St. Leo wrote this one.

[87] This had to be observed, because Tillemont, in Pulcheria, p. 178, ineptly gathers from the letter of Leo just given but she did not write to Leo about these matters before receiving his letter. that St. Pulcheria wrote to Leo about these things before she had received any letter of his about them. But I in no way doubt that that conjecture, for which there is no foundation in this letter, is wholly false. St. Leo says indeed that at the same work and time he and Pulcheria began to think about the remedies to be applied to the evil; but he does not say that she wrote letters to Rome at the same time at which he had written to Constantinople. On the contrary, by these words, Now also I ask more urgently, using a greater confidence in entreating, after I have received the support of your venerable exhortation — by these words, I say,

it is sufficiently indicated that Leo received Pulcheria's first letter on that matter a little before he was writing this one, so that we may conjecture that the Saint's letter was sent in the month of January, and some days or weeks after she had received St. Leo's earlier one.

[88] Further, there is no doubt that Pulcheria, having returned to the court, laboured zealously The Saint labours for the faith, and writes to Leo on behalf of Anatolius, to draw her brother Theodosius away from the party of the Eutychians. But what fruit of her labour she obtained I shall examine below. Meanwhile the Saint seems to have brought it about that Anatolius, who had been consecrated by the supporters of Eutyches, joined himself to the Catholics against the Eutychians. Certainly Anatolius was afterwards a sound Catholic, whatever he may have been at the beginning of his ordination — which I do not here examine; and already before the death of the emperor Theodosius he sought communion with the Roman Church. But since Anatolius is not read to have written to the Roman Pontiff immediately after his ordination, it is likely that he was moved by Pulcheria to do so. To this end also Theodosius and Pulcheria seem to have written to Leo in the year 450. Certainly St. Leo wrote to both on this matter in the month of July. Letter 54, otherwise 35, to Pulcheria was published thus: Leo the bishop to Pulcheria Augusta: I rejoice in the faith of your Clemency, that you graciously bestow a religious zeal that the peace of the Church may be renewed, which by the dissensions of certain men seemed to have been disturbed. For this is owed especially to your glory, that, all the scandals being taken away which the enemy had stirred up against the Catholic faith, there should be one and the same confession of truth throughout the whole world; which will be the more easily and certainly restored if no seeds, no traces of perverse opinions be left.

[89] who replies to her what he requires of Anatolius, Yet what belongs to my part I ought not to pass over, namely that I should learn what is held by the bishop of Constantinople concerning the Incarnation of the Son of God; especially since many things went before his ordination, and he ought to have directed to us such writings as would clearly show him a stranger to the contagion of this error which has lately emerged. Desiring therefore to have a secure concord with him, and to bestow on him the grace of fraternal charity, I have for the time put off writing to him: not denying love, but awaiting the manifestation of Catholic truth. For what I ask is simple and plain: that, the labour of long disputations being set aside, he acquiesce in the letter of Cyril of holy memory, bishop of Alexandria, which he himself had sent to Nestorius, in which he both convicted the error of Nestorius and set forth the faith of the Nicene definition; and that he consent to my letter which was directed to Flavian, bishop of holy remembrance. Which being vigilantly inspected, let the prelate of Constantinople acknowledge without delay that what he dared to define against the pure and singular faith with unskilled folly must be repudiated by him; because both my confession and that of the holy Fathers concerning the Incarnation of the Lord is in all things concordant and one. And if anyone shall judge that it is not to be followed, he himself cuts himself off from the frame of Catholic unity; while yet we desire that all things be recalled to their integrity.

[90] and he sends legates to Constantinople. But to obtain more swiftly the effect of these healthful dispositions, I have sent my brothers and fellow bishops Abundius and Asterius, and also Basil and Senator, presbyters, most approved men, who should offer to your clemency the form of the faith which we preach according to the teaching of the venerable Fathers, and, the circumlocutions being removed by which truth is wont to be obscured, should show what has been defended by the approved priests of the whole world concerning the Incarnation of the Son of God; whom, after divine grace, it is fitting to be aided by the holy help of your piety, lest an imprudent purpose go forward to the disturbance of the whole Church; since, correction being applied, all ought to return to the concord of one confession. From which if perchance some dissent, let a universal council of priests be ordered to be held within Italy, your Clemency exerting herself for it ; so that, the art of deceiving being removed, it may at last be plain what by a deeper treatment ought either to be restrained or healed. Given on the thirteenth of the Kalends of August, in the consulship of the most illustrious men Valentinian Augustus for the seventh time, and Avienus. What the legates of St. Leo accomplished at Constantinople, together with Anatolius and with the help of St. Pulcheria, we shall see hereafter. But first it must be set forth how great a change of affairs took place there through the death of Theodosius and the marriage of St. Pulcheria with the emperor Marcian: for these things happened before the legates had reached Constantinople.

* elsewhere, "obtains"

* elsewhere, "will redound"

* elsewhere, "see"

* elsewhere, "aids"

* elsewhere, "an embassy committed"

* elsewhere, "in his ordination many things," etc.

* elsewhere, "will cut off"

* elsewhere, "contention"

* elsewhere, "consenting"

§ X. The death of the emperor Theodosius, who seems to have banished Chrysaphius and, more probably, to have abandoned the party of the Eutychians: Chrysaphius put to death by order of St. Pulcheria.

[ ] The death of the emperor Theodosius, That Theodosius II died in the year 450 ancient and modern writers agree; yet about the day of his death not all are in accord. But most say that he died on the XXVIII day of the month of July, and their opinion seems to be preferred, although some have referred his death to one day later, and others even to the month of June. It matters nothing to the glory of St. Pulcheria whether her brother Theodosius ended his mortal life on one day or another. But if the opinion of Baronius is true, who believes that Theodosius, by the counsel of St. Pulcheria, drew back from the Eutychians toward the end of his life, that is exceedingly honourable to the holy Empress. This is certain, which the same Baronius with other writers observes: that Theodosius reigned piously, rightly and happily so long as St. Pulcheria had the chief authority in administering the empire; but that he was unhappy and most gravely fell after he preferred to use the counsels of eunuchs rather than those of his holy Sister.

[92] But not equally certain are the things which he subjoins concerning Theodosius at the year 450, num. 16, in this manner: whom Baronius believes to have drawn back from the Eutychians before his death. Who indeed experienced a vengeance tempered by the mercy of God, in that it was granted him before his death to understand the crime committed, to seek remedies, to take vengeance on its author (Chrysaphius), to obey the Roman Pontiff and to communicate with him, as the letters given on both sides teach. These so great things, without doubt, he obtained by the prayers of his holy Sister, that the good works of a past life excellently discharged should not perish. But it was also of the divine mercy that he should pay the penalties of the monstrous crime committed in this life rather than in the life to come, since God does not judge twice for the same thing: for thus, according to the sentence of the Apostle, the elect are chastened by God in this world that they may not be condemned with this world. So Baronius of Theodosius II, and not improbably.

[93] But the reasons which impelled Baronius to that opinion are denied by Tillemont. Certainly various Greek writers assert that Chrysaphius He denies, in St. Leo, art. XI, and elsewhere, that Chrysaphius, the author of all the evils, ever fell from the favour of Theodosius, or was banished by him. Let us see, then, whether Tillemont rightly denies what various writers assert. Theophanes has it thus: Theodosius … recognizing that he had been circumvented by the frauds of Chrysaphius, conceived the utmost grief of mind for the impious crimes perpetrated against Flavian and for the injuries done to the other bishops. And so, breaking forth into anger, he first banishes Chrysaphius to a certain island. Nothing is clearer than these words. Nicephorus, book 14, chap. 49: But then Theodosius, when, having weighed the matter with himself, he discovered that he had been deceived by the craft of Chrysaphius, bore exceedingly ill both the impiety perpetrated upon Flavian and the outrage and condemnation wickedly inflicted upon the other bishops. And since he could not heal his own grief, he poured out a lawful and just fury upon Chrysaphius. And so, having first stripped him of his dignity and presently of all his substance, he banished him to a certain island. Whose judgment, so that a heavenly reckoning might also approve it, overtook him as he sailed upon the sea. These last words are added to Theophanes and are obscure; nor can they be so admitted that we should believe Chrysaphius perished at sea, whose death we shall presently see.

[94] was banished by him: nor is this rightly denied. Zonaras and Cedrenus, cited at num. 60 and 61, agree that Chrysaphius was banished by Theodosius. Constantine Manasses speaks of him thus at p. 56: And that Chrysaphius was a eunuch, the common ruin of men, wicked, of impure, bloody and execrable manners: and when the emperor afterwards learned his wickedness, his goods being confiscated and the man reduced to poverty, a most just sentence having been passed, he ordered him to go into banishment. Thus far the writers alleged, against whom Tillemont opposed nothing, content to suppress their words and to cite only those writers who treated of the death inflicted on Chrysaphius. I suspect, however, that Tillemont withdrew credit from so many writers on account of the words of Priscus in the Excerpts on the embassies, p. 71, where he has: On the one side Attila (whom Chrysaphius had wished to kill by a suborned assassin), on the other Zeno (the commander of the soldiers) demanded Chrysaphius for punishment. For Tillemont, citing these words in Theodosius II, art. 34, observes that legates were sent to Attila and that he was mollified. But if Attila did not go on to demand the head of Chrysaphius, if Theodosius did not then hand him over to Attila when he demanded him, as Priscus has it, and if Zeno too was quiet — which he does not have — could not on that account a man infamous for so many crimes be afterwards banished? I shall believe that, forsooth, when I judge that Theodosius could not change.

[95] From Prosper too, and from the legates sent by Leo Further, that Theodosius was torn away from the party of the Eutychians other things also indicate. Certainly in these matters St. Prosper is worthy of all authority, who lived and wrote at the same time. He in the Chronicle at the year 450 has it thus: Pope Leo prevailing again, presbyters and deacons are sent to the East to confute the heresy. And in the same year Theodosius Augustus died. How did Leo prevail again, unless because Theodosius was yielding? St. Prosper speaks, as I judge, of the legates whom Leo writes that he is sending in the Letter to Pulcheria recited at num. 90 — although these were bishops and presbyters, not deacons with presbyters. Of the same legates, on the seventeenth of the Kalends of August, St. Leo wrote to Theodosius letter 52, in which he explains what he requires of Anatolius of Constantinople in order that he may be able to communicate with him, and about the legates sent he addresses the emperor thus: But that a swifter and fuller effect may, with the Lord's help, be given to these healthful cares through the FAITH of your clemency, I have directed to your piety our brothers and fellow bishops Abundius and Asterius, and also Basil and Senator, presbyters, whose devotion has been approved by me, etc. Of the same men Leo speaks again in letter 53 to Faustus, Marcian and the rest, given on the following day, where among other things he has: For although the most clement emperor has directed to us such writings as would show his solicitude for the peace of the universal Church, the bishop of Constantinople himself, and those who had consecrated him, indicated nothing to us about errors suppressed or renounced, beyond what pertained to the ordination of the new prelate.

[96] Now let us turn our minds for a moment to what has been alleged. Theodosius knew that St. Leo was most opposed to the Eutychian heretics, it seems it must be said that Theodosius was changed; and that he disapproved and had rescinded all that had been done at Ephesus in the robber synod. Why then does he so greatly seek his communion for Anatolius, if he was at that time continuing to favour the Eutychians and the acts of Ephesus? Secondly, at the same time Theodosius, Pulcheria and Anatolius himself concurred in asking for the communion of Leo on behalf of Anatolius. And certainly Pulcheria and Anatolius were then Catholics. Therefore it is not likely that Theodosius was then a heretic, or favouring heretics; especially since Leo praises his faith twice in the same letter and says to Theodosius: Let the MOST DEVOTED FAITH of your clemency act, etc. Hence too he seems to congratulate Pulcheria on the correction of Theodosius in these words: For this is owed especially to your glory, that, all the scandals being taken away which the enemy had stirred up against the Catholic faith, there should be one and the same confession of truth throughout the whole world. On account of Theodosius corrected, I say, and perhaps on account of Anatolius, anxious about communion with the Roman Church, these things must have been said, since it is not established that other scandals of the Church had been taken away up to that time. Thirdly, it is clear from a comparison of the letters that Theodosius had been changed. For before, in the letter to Valentinian mentioned above, he said: All peace and all concord reigns in the churches, and nothing but the truth flourishes. But afterwards he directed to Leo such writings as would show his solicitude for the peace of the universal Church.

[97] Wherefore concerning the change of Theodosius, who seems rather to have imprudently favoured the heretics than the heresy, so that his conversion is highly probable. this conjecture appears to me most probable. He had been embittered against St. Flavian by the fraud of Chrysaphius. Hence he readily allowed himself to be persuaded that Flavian's judgment about Eutyches was unjust. Consequently he willed that the council, or rather the robbery, of Ephesus should be assembled, in which he allowed St. Flavian to be crushed by the violent conspiracy of the Eutychians. He heard most grave complaints about that unjust judgment through the letters of Leo, Valentinian, Galla Placidia and Eudoxia, sent, as it appears of all of them, in the month of October of the year 449. But so far was he from acquiescing in these that he wrote back that Flavian had been rightly condemned. Not long after, St. Pulcheria, stirred by the letters of Leo and of Galla Placidia, began to involve herself in affairs, and Chrysaphius was banished. Then at last, in the year 450, I judge that the mind of Theodosius was changed, who began to see that he had wrongly favoured the Eutychians, and wished to restore the peace of the Church. Hence Leo sent his legates to Constantinople, as has been said, that all things might the sooner be restored to their integrity. But Theodosius could not accomplish this, because before the arrival of those legates he ended his life.

[98] I know what can be objected against this order of events, and against the very penitence of Theodosius, from the letter of the emperor Valentinian to Theodosius and the latter's reply to it, Some believe the letters of Valentinian were sent to Theodosius in the year 450; because some think these letters were sent not long before the death of Theodosius: and if this be true, many of the things said cannot stand. Hence the date of the letters which Valentinian, Galla Placidia and Eudoxia wrote together to Theodosius must be examined, as I have already noted. Valentinian begins his Letter thus: When I had come to the city of Rome to appease the Divinity, on the following day I went in procession to the basilica of the apostle Peter, and there, after the venerable night of the Apostle's day, I was asked both by the Roman Bishop and by others gathered with him from various provinces to write to your mildness concerning the faith, etc. Quesnel, in his prohibited Dissertations on the Works of St. Leo, p. 281, gathers from the words alleged that a synod was assembled on the feast of the Apostles Peter and Paul, the XXIX day of June of the year 450, and that Valentinian wrote then. If that opinion be true, Theodosius was not converted, except perhaps in the last days of his life, since he did not survive a full month and yet replied to Valentinian that Flavian had been rightly condemned. But that opinion of Quesnel has already been refuted by Tillemont in note 32 on St. Leo, and is not even probable, because letters were not carried so quickly from Rome to Constantinople that Theodosius could have replied to this one before his death, if it had been sent on the XXIX of June or the day after, since no one says that he died after the XXVIII of July.

[99] [but they were sent in the year 449, in the month of October, in which a council was held at Rome;] Tillemont, having entered on another path, strives to prove that by Valentinian's words is to be understood the feast of the Chair of St. Peter at Antioch, which is celebrated on the XXII of February, and rejects the opinion of Baronius, who at the year 449 judges that the feast of the dedication of the Church of St. Peter is understood, wont to be celebrated on the XVIII of November. But if some festival at all is indicated by the words alleged, the opinion of Baronius appears to me far more probable than that of Tillemont; yet neither sufficiently satisfies me. For various considerations persuade me that Valentinian's letters were sent in the month of October, when St. Leo was holding a synod at Rome. Certainly Valentinian clearly declares that there was a synod at Rome when he was writing the said letters. No less openly does Galla Placidia indicate this in her letters, and Eudoxia suggests the same when she says that Leo made his request together with very many other bishops. But it is established that a council was held at Rome in the month of October, when Leo together with the synod wrote to Theodosius and Pulcheria. And so it was during that council that the letters of Valentinian and of the two empresses were written, since it is not likely that after a few months another council was gathered by Leo from various provinces, as Valentinian speaks of this one, or from innumerable cities of Italy, as Galla Placidia does. Certainly of another synod which was held in the earlier months of the year 450 Leo nowhere makes mention in his letters, although he wrote various letters in that year in the months of March, May and July about the cause of the Eutychians; nor does any other writer mention it.

[100] as is shown by various reasons Further, as Tillemont observes, it is not likely that that council, which had been gathered at Rome before the middle of the month of October, lasted until the XVIII of November. But the said writer ought to have noticed that by that observation his own opinion is rendered altogether improbable. For if it is not likely that the council lasted until the XVIII of November, with what likelihood at all shall we say that the bishops remained assembled until the XXII of February of the following year? Tillemont could not fail to see this insuperable difficulty of his opinion; but he preferred to dissemble it rather than answer in vain. Besides, Tillemont admits — and it is clearly gathered from the letters cited — that the death of St. Flavian was unknown at Rome when Valentinian and the empresses were writing to Theodosius. But it is not likely that the death of St. Flavian, who, as Tillemont confesses, died in the month of August, was unknown at Rome until the XXII of February, that is, for six whole months. Improbable, therefore, is Tillemont's opinion about the time when the letters were sent.

[101] To this argument, however, he has attempted to reply: drawn from the very letters themselves. for he says that he has shown in note 28 that the death of St. Flavian was still unknown at Rome on the XVII of March, when Leo was writing to Martin and Faustus his letter 49. But the whole proof comes down to this, that St. Leo writes nothing to them about the death of Flavian, gives them no mandate for the election of a successor, and does not say in what manner they ought to deal with him. I answer that the reason is plainly frivolous: for Leo had no need to write to men living at Constantinople about the death of Flavian, which was there most widely known; nor about the election of a successor, which had long since been carried out. And in what manner they should deal with Anatolius he had doubtless understood from their own letters, to which he replies. And so it is by no means likely that the death of Flavian was unknown to Leo on the XXII of February, much less on the XVII of March. A third reason which renders Tillemont's opinion improbable is drawn from the letters of which we are treating. The emperor and the empresses write to Theodosius in such a way that they seem to have known nothing of the evil deeds at Ephesus before they had come to Rome. Hence Galla Placidia says in her letter to Pulcheria: In which speech (of Leo) we learned that in our times the Catholic faith has been disturbed, etc. She did not learn this from Leo's words if she had known it before. But it is by no means likely that the emperor and the empresses, living in Italy, were ignorant of those deeds at Ephesus until the XXII of February, or that Leo did not have recourse to them sooner. Again, therefore, it is improbable that their letters were sent about the XXII of February.

[102] Nevertheless in the letters of Theodosius, tom. 4 of the Councils, col. 58, there are some words from which From the letters by which Theodosius replied to them nothing can be drawn, Quesnel at p. 281 gathered that the letters of Valentinian and the empresses were written later. For he reasons thus: Theodosius, writing back to Valentinian and to the Augustæ, says that concerning those matters which Leo had recalled he had already written to him MORE FULLY, MORE COMPLETELY, MORE OPENLY, MOST FULLY AND OFTEN. But since Leo wrote to Theodosius from the synod of October immediately after the disturbances of Ephesus became known, how shall we believe that Leo received frequent rescripts of the emperor before Valentinian did? I answer that the words alleged have been heaped together out of three letters, and will have no difficulty if each is restored to its own. To Valentinian Theodosius writes back that about those matters it has been written more at large and most fully to Leo. He could truly say this on the same day on which he was writing to Leo. To Galla Placidia he replies that about the same matters it has often been written more fully and more openly. He does not say that it has often been written by himself to Leo, but that it has often been written about that matter: from which nothing at all can be established as to the time. To Eudoxia, finally, he replies: But about the present cause … our mildness has fully signified to the most reverend archbishop Leo.

[103] From these things, therefore, nothing can be inferred about the time when the letters were written, that would favour the opinion of our opponents. except this one thing by a highly probable conjecture: that Valentinian and the Augustæ wrote to Theodosius at the same time as Leo; since he refers back to a letter which was probably sent to Leo on the same day. Wherefore there seems no room for doubt that the Augustus and the Augustæ wrote together with Leo from the Roman council which was held in the month of October. But what is suggested in Valentinian's letter about some festival of St. Peter then celebrated ought not to detain us, since perhaps it was only some particular devotion which Valentinian performed at the tombs of the Apostles. Certainly in the other letters nothing is said of any solemn festival, nor is any fixed festival clearly signified in Valentinian's letters themselves.

[104] Chrysaphius was killed by order of Pulcheria: this was done before her marriage, Having discussed those things which show that Theodosius more probably in the last months of his life thought about restoring peace to the Church and about fostering the Catholic faith, I shall subjoin the killing of Chrysaphius the eunuch

as most just. The Excerpts from the History of Theodore the Lector have it thus: He (Theodore) says besides that Chrysaphius, who was also called Tzumas, was killed by order of Pulcheria. Marcellinus Comes at the year 450: Chrysaphius the eunuch was put to death, at the nod of Pulcheria the sister of Theodosius, together with his own avarice. Theodore not only attributes the punishment of Chrysaphius to St. Pulcheria, but also relates it before her marriage with Marcian, just as Prosper and Victor of Tunnuna in their Chronicles clearly place that killing before the marriage; and the Paschal Chronicle agrees in this order. And so Marcellinus and Theophanes, who relate first the promotion of Marcian, must be judged to have neglected the order.

[105] and more probably near the gate of the town of Melantias, Further, the Paschal Chronicle has it thus concerning the killing of the eunuch: In the same year Chrysaphius the spatharius was killed at the gate of Melantias. Tillemont, in St. Leo, art. XI, explains the gate of Melantias as the gate of Constantinople which leads toward Melantias. Now Melantias was a town of Thrace on the river Athyras, and not far from the Propontis, as may be seen in Cellarius, Ancient Geography, tom. 1, p. 852, where Suidas observes that Melantias, which was then also called Melitias, is 102 stadia distant from Byzantium or Constantinople. Du Cange, in Christian Constantinople, book 1, p. 52, found a gate Melandesia, and judges that it was so called from Melantias. But that conjecture of Du Cange is uncertain, since the letters of the word Melantias are not altogether such that Melandesia can rightly be derived from it. But still more uncertain and less probable is the opinion of Tillemont; since it is not added in the Chronicle that he was killed at Constantinople, and therefore it appears more probable that he was killed at the gate of the town of Melantias itself.

[106] by Jordanes, whose father he had killed. Theophanes has it thus concerning the punishment of Chrysaphius: Further, the blessed Pulcheria handed over Chrysaphius the eunuch, hateful to all, to Jordanes, the son of John (who, having once seized a tyranny at Rome, betook himself after his surrender to Ardaburius and Aspar, and setting out with them to Byzantium and being promoted to honours and dignities, had at last suffered death inflicted by Chrysaphius); and Jordanes punished him with a like penalty of death. The manner in which the holy Empress proceeded to punish the wicked man in some way suggests that he was at that time neither at the court nor at Constantinople, but in exile. For if Chrysaphius had enjoyed the same power with Theodosius up to the emperor's death, perhaps Jordanes could not have attacked so most powerful a man without danger; but that danger ceased when he had been deprived by exile of friends and consequently of the help of friends.

§ XI. The Saint's marriage with Marcian, with a compact added about preserving virginity: Marcian created emperor: matters of faith advanced by the zeal of both, and the body of St. Flavian translated to Constantinople.

[ ] Pulcheria, under a compact of preserving virginity Theophanes, p. 88, having related the death of Theodosius, goes on thus: But the blessed Pulcheria, the emperor's death not yet being made known to anyone, summoned to her Marcian, a man renowned for prudence and honesty of manners, already advanced in age and fit for conducting affairs, and addresses him: "Since the emperor has died, I have chosen you out of the whole senate as the most excellent in virtue. Give me your pledge that you will keep inviolate my virginity, which I have consecrated to God, and I will proclaim you emperor." When he had promised that he would so do, Pulcheria convokes the patriarch and the senate, and sees to it that Marcian is declared emperor of the Romans. In almost the same way Zonaras, p. 45: Theodosius being dead, but his death known to few, Pulcheria summons Marcian, already an old man, but a good and modest man; and, the emperor's death being disclosed, she says: "I have chosen you before all others as emperor, if you will give your pledge that you will preserve untouched my virginity, which I have consecrated to God." When he had assented, having summoned the patriarch and the senate, she salutes him emperor and girds him with the diadem — Pulcheria, that is, as Augusta, Marcian. Each of them suggests obscurely rather than clearly the marriage which Pulcheria contracted with Marcian under a compact of preserving virginity, in order that she might in that way raise him to the empire.

[108] Further, it is not clear from the writers whether the election of Marcian preceded the marriage contracts a marriage with Marcian, or followed it. But it is certain from the letters of St. Pulcheria that a marriage was truly contracted, since in them she calls Marcian her husband. Nor is it less certainly established that Marcian was elected emperor by the senate also and by the people, at Pulcheria's persuasion. In the Paschal Chronicle Theodosius is said before his death to have commended Marcian to Pulcheria, and to have said in the presence of the senators that he had learned by a divine revelation that this man would succeed him. But that Chronicle is not free from fables. Wherefore I have judged that neither that revelation of Theodosius, nor other things which are found in various writers about the empire being foretold to Marcian on various occasions, should be transferred hither or examined, especially since they do not properly concern St. Pulcheria. But this greatly conduces to the Saint's praise, that she chose as husband and emperor a man not indeed illustrious by most noble birth, nor conspicuous for the highest dignities, but renowned for virtues, excellent in piety, polished in manners, most fit for administering the empire, and finally such and so great a man that he is deservedly numbered among the most excellent emperors and celebrated with the praises of all writers.

[109] Evagrius, book 2, chap. 1, has much about him. But I transfer only a few things hither: Marcian therefore, as has been handed down both by many others and by Priscus the rhetorician, was sprung from Thrace, of a military father. that she may raise to the empire a man most approved: And after many things: Marcian was pious toward God, and most just toward his subjects: judging true riches to be, not those which are laid up or which are gathered from tributes, but only those which can relieve the want of the needy and render the wealth of the rich safe and secure. Formidable not so much because he punished as because it was feared that he would punish. And so he obtained the empire, not indeed by hereditary right, but as the reward of virtue: when the senate and all men of all orders had by common consent conferred this honour on him at the persuasion of Pulcheria. Whom he indeed took to wife, as being an Augusta; yet he never had relations with her, since she remained in perpetual virginity until her death. And these things were done before Valentinian, who ruled at Rome, had approved that election by his vote. Which nevertheless he afterwards confirmed on account of Marcian's virtue. Further, Marcian's chief wish was that one and the same worship should be shown to God by all, the tongues which had been confounded through impiety being again piously united; and that the divine Godhead should be praised with one and the same glorification. More briefly St. Prosper in the Chronicle: The emperor Theodosius having ended his days, and Chrysaphius the chamberlain, who had ill used the friendship of the prince, having been put to death, Marcian received the kingdom by the consent of the whole army — a man most weighty, and most necessary not only to the commonwealth but also to the Church.

[110] he, being elected by all the orders, The Paschal Chronicle at the year 450 adds the place and day of the election in these words: In that same year Marcian was raised as Augustus by the Circus factions at the Hebdomon, in the month Loüs, … on the VIII of the Kalends of September, on the fifth day of the week. And he ruled alone (in the East). He took to wife the lady Pulcheria, sister of the emperor Theodosius, a virgin, aged 54 years. Idatius in his Chronicle, having related the death of Theodosius, has it thus concerning the election of Marcian: At once at Constantinople Marcian is made emperor by the soldiers and by the army, at the urging also of Pulcheria the queen, sister of Theodosius. Having taken her to himself in marriage, he reigns in the parts of the East. From these things it may be conjectured that the order of events was as follows. Theodosius being dead, Pulcheria summons Marcian and makes with him a compact about entering marriage and preserving virginity in it. This she then communicates to the patriarch and the senate, and deals with them about creating Marcian emperor. Their consent and that of others being obtained, Marcian is elected emperor by all; and then he celebrates the marriage with Pulcheria.

[111] takes up the empire in the month of August. As regards the XXV day of August assigned in the Paschal Chronicle, that day agrees neither with the fifth day of the week nor with the Macedonian month Loüs: for since the Dominical letter in that year was A, the XXV of August was the sixth day of the week, not the fifth; and the month Loüs ends on the XXIV of August. Wherefore, since Idatius writes that Marcian was elected immediately after the death of Theodosius, I judge that the day is wrongly assigned in the Paschal Chronicle, which is frequently faulty, and that the thing was accomplished earlier on a day unknown to me. That St. Pulcheria was fifty-four years of age when she married I shall readily admit, since she must have been of that age according to what was discussed in §2 about the year of her birth. But the author of the Chronicle could not attribute so many years to her, since he had said she was born in the year 399, unless he had scraped his materials together from various writers whom he did not reconcile with one another.

[112] Marcian being elected and his marriage with St. Pulcheria celebrated, The body of St. Flavian translated to Constantinople: St. Pulcheria presently saw to various things being done for the advancement of the Catholic faith. The first place, as I judge, belongs to the translation of the body of St. Flavian. Theophanes, p. 88, and Nicephorus, book 14, chap. 49, report that translation before the death of the emperor Theodosius. The emperor Marcian, in the Law by which he annuls what was done against St. Flavian, tom. 4 of the Councils, col. 865, says that the city of Constantinople sought and received the relics of Flavian, but says nothing about the time of the translation, except that he indicates that it was made at least before the Council of Chalcedon. This is certain, that the orders for translating the Saint's body were given much sooner than the sacred body reached Constantinople. Hence it could have come about that, while Theodosius was still living, St. Pulcheria ordered that sacred body to be translated, and that it reached Constantinople in the reign of Marcian. And in this way the letter of St. Pulcheria presently to be given, in which the translation is said to have been made by the order of Marcian, could be so reconciled with Theophanes that we should believe the translation was ordered by Pulcheria before the death of Theodosius, and that the body was brought to Constantinople and there honourably laid up by the command of Marcian. But whatever be the case about the time when the translation was begun, we cannot doubt that St. Pulcheria was chiefly the one who saw to its being carried out, and to her St. Leo first gave thanks for it, although she modestly wrote that the translation was made by Marcian's command. I judge also that the order for the translation was given before the Apostolic legates held the council at Constantinople in which the Catholic faith of Anatolius was established, as we shall presently say, because the translation could not otherwise have been completed when St. Pulcheria was writing about what was done in that council.

[113] We saw at num. 90 that legates were sent by St. Leo to Constantinople in the month of July of the year 450, [a council held there, in which Anatolius and others are reconciled to the Roman Church:] and that these were commended to St. Pulcheria. The reason was that St. Leo might learn through their service about the faith of Anatolius, bishop of Constantinople, and of others, before he should communicate with them. The first of these legates was St. Abundius

bishop of Como, in whose Life, given by us at the 2nd of April, chap. 3, the following is read to our purpose: Besides, Anatolius, bishop of the church of Constantinople, the lesser Rome, having received the letter of St. Leo the Pope on the confirmation of the Catholic faith against heretics, gathered a council of all the bishops and archimandrites, and of presbyters and deacons; and before the sight of all the letter of St. Leo was read, which blessed Abundius presented in the presence of all, with the concordant testimonies of the Roman and Argolic fathers. Anatolius, bishop of Constantinople, consented and subscribed with full devotion to this letter of St. Leo the Pope, containing the truth of the Catholic faith, with the concordant testimonies also of the Fathers directed from the same Apostolic See, pronouncing anathema against Eutyches and Nestorius, and against their doctrine and their followers. Then the other Fathers, of no small number, subscribed in the same manner. These things were done in the year 450 as it was drawing to its close, after the legates had come to Constantinople; and thus the Catholic faith again prevailed there.

[114] Pulcheria, by whose diligence all had been happily accomplished, sent such letters as these to St. Leo. Pulcheria writes about these things to Leo, To Leo, most reverend bishop of the Church of the glorious city of Rome, Pulcheria, most venerable Augusta. We have received the letters of your beatitude with all the veneration befitting every bishop; through which we have known your faith to be pure, and such as ought to be offered with holiness in the sacred temple. And I, likewise with my lord the most tranquil emperor, my husband, have both remained and remain always in the same faith, shunning all depravity and pollution and evil-doing. The most holy Anatolius, therefore, bishop of glorious Constantinople, has remained in the same faith and religion, and embraces the apostolic confession of your letters, that error being taken away which has now arisen from certain men, as your Holiness will be able to know more clearly from his own letters also; and he has likewise subscribed without any delay to the letter of the Catholic faith which your Beatitude directed to Flavian, bishop of holy memory.

[115] asking at the same time that a universal council be held. And therefore may your Reverence deign to signify in whatever manner you shall have provided; that all the bishops of the whole East also, of Thrace and Illyricum, as it has pleased also our lord the most pious emperor my husband, may be able to come together swiftly from the Eastern parts into one city: and that there, a council being held, they may decree, with you as their guide, both concerning the Catholic confession and concerning those bishops who before this have been separated, as faith and Christian piety demand. And besides these things let your Holiness know that by the command of our lord and most tranquil prince, my husband, the body of the bishop Flavian of holy memory has been brought into the glorious city of Constantinople and has been fittingly placed in the basilica of the Apostles, in which the bishops his predecessors have been wont to be buried. And likewise he has commanded by the force of his pragmatic decree that those bishops who for the same cause were carried into exile, because they had concurred with the most holy Flavian in the concord of the Catholic faith, ought to return; so that by the approval of a synod and the sentence of all the bishops assembled they may be decreed to recover their episcopate and their own churches. Thus far St. Pulcheria, by whose piety and diligence all had been happily accomplished. The date of the letter is not added.

[116] Replying, St. Leo celebrates the Saint with a notable elogium, Having received these letters, and being informed from elsewhere also about what had been done at Constantinople, St. Leo sent to Pulcheria on the XIII day of April of the year 451 letter 59, formerly 39, sprinkled with wonderful praises of the Saint. I transfer the whole of it hither: Leo, Bishop of the City of Rome, to Pulcheria Augusta. What we have always presumed of the holy mind of your Piety, that we have most fully learned by experience: that the Christian faith, though assailed by the various snares of the perverse, cannot nevertheless be disturbed while you are present and prepared by the Lord for its defence. For God abandons neither the sacrament of His own mercy nor the merit of your labour: by which you long since drove the crafty enemy of holy religion from the very bowels of the Church, when Nestorian impiety could not defend its heresy; because it did not deceive the Handmaid and Disciple of truth as to how much venom was being poured into simple souls through those coloured lies of a talkative man. From which contest of virtues it came about that through your solicitude the things which the devil contrived through Eutyches did not lie hidden; and that those who had chosen for themselves the several parts of a twofold impiety fell together before the one strength of the Catholic faith. This, then, is your second victory, in the destruction of the error of Eutyches: who, if he had had any soundness of heart, could easily have avoided an error long since struck down in its authors and long since laid low, so as not to attempt to stir up living flames from buried ashes, and so pass into the fellowship of those whose example he had followed, most glorious Augusta. It is fitting therefore to exult with joy, and for the prosperity of your Clemency to pay vows worthy of God, who through all the parts of the world in which the Gospel of the Lord is preached has now conferred on you a twofold palm and crown.

[117] Let your Clemency then know that the whole Roman Church greatly rejoices at all the works of your faith: and commends certain other matters whether because you have aided our embassy with an affection pious in all things, and because you have brought back the Catholic priests who were cast out of their churches by an unjust sentence; or because you have caused the relics of Flavian of holy memory, an innocent and Catholic priest, to be recalled with due honour to the church over which he well presided. In all which things the increase of your glory is multiplied, since you both venerate the Saints for their merits and wish to remove the thorns and briars from the Lord's field. But that certain of those bishops who seem to have given consent to impious deeds are asking for reconciliation and desiring the communion of Catholics, we have learned by the report both of our own men and of my brother and fellow bishop Anatolius, to whom you deign to bear witness; and to their desires we so give effect that, when they are corrected and condemn by their own subscription what was ill done, the grace of peace may be granted them, the care of those whom we sent being shared with the aforesaid bishop: because it belongs equally to Christian devotion that just truth should restrain the obstinate and that charity should not repel the converted.

[118] But since we know how much pious solicitude your Mildness deigns to bestow on Catholic priests, she is again commended to her. we have taken care that it should be made known that my brother and fellow bishop Eusebius is staying with us and is a partaker of our communion; whose church we commend, which he is said to be laying waste who is asserted to have been unjustly substituted for him. Asking this also of your Piety, which we do not doubt you do of your own free judgment: that you cherish with the favour you owe both my brother and fellow bishop Julian and the clergy of Constantinople who adhered with faithful services to Flavian of holy memory. But concerning all these matters we have instructed your Piety, through our own men, as to what ought to be done or ordained. Given on the Ides of April, in the consulship of the most illustrious Adelphius. On the same day St. Leo wrote to Anatolius, of whose faith he had now been assured, letter 60, and another letter to Marcian Augustus, which we do not have, as is gathered from letter 62, which he addressed again to Marcian a little later; but to no one does he attribute so great praise for what was rightly done as to St. Pulcheria.

[119] Theodore the Lector in book 1 has this: Marcian and Pulcheria wrote letters to Leo, Pope of the City of Rome, Since Marcian and Pulcheria wished to comply with Leo in all things, in which they granted him every power. These words, I judge, signify that they wrote to Leo that he should freely indicate what he wished to be effected for the faith. Hence he writes to Marcian in letter 62 that he should no longer allow it to be disputed or called into doubt whether Eutyches held impious opinions and whether Dioscorus judged perversely. He probably charged Pulcheria with similar things, but that letter has perished, as doubtless have many others. Certainly in the letter to Pulcheria presently to be given, in which he asks that Eutyches be sent into exile further from Constantinople, mention is made of some letter which now is not extant, or at least lies hidden. Further, since many who had fallen into heresy had not yet been reconciled to the Church in the Council of Constantinople of which we have just treated, and since those former legates had returned to Rome, in the month of June of the year 451 St. Leo sent as legates to Constantinople Lucentius the bishop and Basil the presbyter, that they with Anatolius of Constantinople might arrange the whole matter according to the rules prescribed. The holy Pope sent letters about these matters to Marcian, to Pulcheria, to Anatolius, and to Julian, bishop of Cos.

[120] he again sends other legates to Constantinople, But those which were addressed to our Saint, formerly the 45th and afterwards the 64th, run thus: Leo the Bishop to Pulcheria Augusta. I presume to stir up with more frequent addresses the religious solicitude of your piety, by which, at God's inspiration, you take counsel for the whole world; that the necessary completion may follow upon the advance of your works: and that, as we rejoice at the state of the church of Constantinople, whose priest and people are now known to hold the faith of Catholic purity, so too the confession of others concerning the Incarnation of the Word may be in concord with us. Wherefore, what I had indicated in other letters that I would do, I have hastened to send my brothers Lucentius the bishop and Basil the presbyter, who, the devotion of my brother Anatolius being joined with them, may carry out my dispositions according to the rules which they have received, most glorious Augusta. For, as has been made plain by the writings of the aforesaid bishop and by the suggestion of his clergy, there are many things which must be treated more indulgently, many which must more justly be restrained: so that in the cause of so great a disturbance the strictness may not be too harsh, nor the relaxation too incautious; since one thing is due to those who make satisfaction, another to the obstinate. There is offered therefore to your Piety a worthy matter, which may exercise the care of your holy heart that is pleasing to the Lord, and may multiply the crowns of your preceding merits by the abolition also of the present error.

[121] and commends them to Pulcheria, For as the Nestorian impiety, so also the Eutychian blasphemy must be driven out from the fellowship of all Catholics. Because it is as impious to deny that the Deity of the Son, coeternal and consubstantial with the Father, was brought forth even from the womb of the Virgin Mother by a bodily birth, as it is to affirm one nature in the Son of God after the sacrament of the Incarnation: so that, namely, either His humanity or His Deity be refused; whereas in the union of both essences neither is the one turned into the other, nor is that which is assumed ended in Him who assumes; but both the unchangeableness of the Word and the truth of the flesh and the soul remain inseparably in the unity of the Person. And those who do not believe this — the Law testifying, the patriarchs believing, the prophets assenting, the Gospel preaching, the Apostles teaching, and the whole world confessing — are outside the sacrament of the Body of Christ, outside the unity of the Christian name. Whose ruin we lament even as we detest their faithlessness. But that a sincere judgment may be kept everywhere concerning the persons of such men, and that one thing be rendered to the corrected and another to the obstinate, may your Piety deign to cherish our men who have been sent from the Apostolic See; and may she aid all the actions we have enjoined on them, so that the more quickly and easily,

with the Lord's help, those things may be carried out which advance your glory and the peace of the whole Church.

[122] But concerning Eutyches, the author of all the scandal and depravity, asking also that Eutyches be banished. let your Clemency command this: that he be transferred further away from that place which is too near the city of Constantinople, lest he enjoy the too frequent consolations of those whom he has drawn to his impiety. Over his monastery too, which he presided over perniciously and unworthily, order a Catholic abbot to be set, who may both free that congregation of the servants of God from the perverse doctrine and imbue them with the institutes of truth. Given on the VII Ides of June, in the consulship of the most illustrious Adelphius. So indeed St. Leo to Pulcheria; but the things which he desired to be done through these legates were done in the Council of Chalcedon, which had already been proclaimed by Marcian, as we shall see.

§ XII. The deeds of the Saint for the happy outcome of the Council of Chalcedon.

Since St. Leo had often asked for a council, St. Leo the Pope, after the unhappy outcome of the robbery of Ephesus, had often asked by letters that a universal council be held in Italy, that the damages of Ephesus might be repaired. Marcian Augustus, when he had been created emperor, and St. Pulcheria signified to him by letters that it likewise pleased them that a council should be gathered, although these seem always to have desired rather that it should be held in the Eastern empire than in Italy, which belonged to the Western empire and was under Valentinian III. But since so great a necessity of a council did not appear after many things had been restored to their integrity through the legates of St. Leo, and since the Western empire was being harassed by a grave war from Attila king of the Huns, St. Leo was now less in haste and preferred that the council should be deferred, as he writes in letter 63 (otherwise 44) to Marcian Augustus, given in the year 451, on the VII Ides of June, in these words: That a synod should be held, as your clemency recalls, we ourselves also asked. But the necessity of the present time by no means permits the priests of all the provinces to be gathered: since those provinces from which they must chiefly be summoned do not suffer them, war being troublesome *, to depart from their churches. Wherefore let your clemency order it to be reserved for a more opportune time, the Lord being favourable, when a firmer security shall have been restored.

[123] But since Marcian and Pulcheria did not know that Leo had changed his mind, Marcian summons it to Nicæa: and the Pontiff appoints his legates to go there; and desired the hastening of the synod, in order that the bishops unjustly expelled from their sees might recover them by a just judgment, and that the heretics might be driven from the sees they had occupied, Marcian had already convoked the synod by letters given in the month of May, which may be seen in tom. 4 of the Councils, col. 67. And by these letters all the bishops were summoned to Nicæa, where the emperor then thought of holding this synod, and they were ordered to be present at Nicæa on the Kalends of September. St. Leo, having received Marcian's letters about the council convoked at Nicæa, presently approved his plan, and chose four or even five legates, who in the name of the supreme Pontiff should be present at the council and preside over it. These legates were Paschasinus, bishop of Lilybaeum in Sicily, Lucentius bishop of Asculum, and Boniface and Basil, presbyters; to whom was joined Julian, bishop of Cos, who was at Constantinople. About these legates the Pontiff writes to Marcian, to Anatolius, to Julian of Cos, and to the synod itself; yet in the letter to the synod he does not name Julian of Cos among his legates whom he wishes to preside over the synod, so that he seems to have been rather a counsellor of the legates than a legate. The aforesaid letters are read as given on the XXVI and XXVII of June. Whether Leo also wrote to Pulcheria at that time is not established: for no letter to her sent at that time is extant; but it could have perished along with many others.

[124] afterwards he writes to Pulcheria about their being sent, In the month of July he wrote again to Marcian on the same matter, and then addressed this letter, the 75th (otherwise the 51st), to Pulcheria: Leo the Bishop to Pulcheria Augusta. I acknowledge in all things the religious solicitude of your Clemency which you unceasingly bestow on the Catholic faith, and I give thanks to God that I see you have so great a care of the universal Church, that I confidently suggest what I judge to agree with justice and benevolence, so that the more quickly the things which, Christ being favourable, have hitherto been blamelessly accomplished by the zeal of your Piety may be brought to a happy effect, most glorious Augusta. Whereas therefore your Clemency has commanded that the synod of Chalcedon * be held, though your Mildness keeps in mind the request made by me that it should be held in Italy — so that all the prelates of our parts, being convoked, might come together, if the security of the time allowed — nevertheless I have received it so far from disdainfully that I have appointed two each of my fellow bishops and fellow presbyters, who might suffice to fill my place, having also given suitable writings to the venerable synod, by which the brotherhood, being convoked, might know what form it ought to keep in this adjudication: lest any rashness should run counter either to the rules of faith, or to the statutes of the canons, or to the remedies of kindness.

[125] about the evil deeds in the robbery of Ephesus, For, as I have written most frequently from the beginning of this cause, I wished this moderation to be kept amid discordant opinions and carnal rivalries: that nothing should be allowed to be plucked from the integrity of the faith, nothing set against it; but that to those returning to unity and peace the remedy of pardon should be afforded. Because then are the works of the devil more powerfully destroyed, when the hearts of men are recalled to the love of God and of their neighbour. But how contrary to these admonitions and entreaties of mine were the things then done, it is much to explain, nor is there need that a page of a letter should comprise whatever could be perpetrated in that Ephesian — not judgment, but robbery: where the chiefs of the synod spared neither the brethren who resisted them nor those who consented; since, to break the Catholic faith and to strengthen an execrable heresy, they stripped some of the privilege of their honour and stained others with fellowship in impiety — assuredly more savage against those whom by persuasion they separated from innocence than against those whom by persecuting they made blessed confessors.

[126] about the indulgence to be granted to the penitent: Nevertheless, because such men have chiefly harmed themselves by their own iniquity, and to greater wounds a more diligent medicine must be applied, I have never in any letters determined that pardon should be denied even to such, if they should come to their senses. And although we unchangeably detest the heresy most hostile to the Christian religion, yet we do not judge the men themselves, if they are corrected and purify themselves with a worthy satisfaction, to be strangers to the ineffable mercy of God: but rather we groan with those who groan, we weep with those who weep, and so use the justice of our indignation that we do not omit the remedies of charity: which, as your piety knows, is not promised in words alone, but is also taught by deeds. Since almost all who had been either led astray or compelled into agreement with the presiding bishops have obtained, by rescinding what they had determined and condemning what they had written, a perpetual abolition of their fault and the grace of Apostolic peace.

[127] If therefore your Clemency deign to consider my purpose, but from this it cannot be inferred that any act of Leo displeased the Saint. she will approve that I have done all things with this counsel: that without the loss of any soul the extinction of the heresy alone might be obtained; and that on this account I diminished something of custom regarding the authors of those most savage storms, that their slowness might be roused by some compunction to ask for indulgence. Who, although after that judgment of theirs, as impious as it was unjust, they are not honourable to the Catholic brotherhood as they were, nevertheless still hold their sees and enjoy the honour of their episcopate — either about to receive the peace of the whole Church through a true and necessary satisfaction, or, if they defend the heresy, which God forbid, to be judged according to the desert of their profession. Given on the thirteenth of the Kalends of August, in the consulship of the most illustrious Adelphius. Tillemont, in St. Leo, art. 99, suspects from this letter that it displeased St. Pulcheria that St. Leo had forbidden the names of Dioscorus and of certain others, who had played the chief parts in the robbery of Ephesus, to be read from the diptychs. But this suspicion appears to me empty, since for various causes he could set forth to the Saint the reasons of his counsels, as Leo does.

[128] Further, that council was neither held at Nicæa, The council begun later and at Chalcedon: against the rioters the Saint writes. nor begun on the Kalends of September, as had at first been determined. The reason for deferring it could be twofold: both because Leo had written in letter 74 to Marcian that too short a time had been appointed for the bishops to assemble, and because the emperor himself was detained in the parts of Illyricum by certain incursions of enemies. This last reason was also the reason for transferring the synod, so that Marcian himself might be present, as the legates of the Apostolic See were requesting. This reason Marcian sets forth in the letters by which he transfers the synod to Chalcedon, near Constantinople, as may be seen in tom. 4 of the Councils, col. 74. That the Apostolic legates asked not without cause that the emperor should be present we sufficiently gather from the tumults which the Eutychians, and perhaps the Nestorians also, were stirring up at Nicæa. Certainly St. Pulcheria, having heard of those tumults, sent an order to Strategius, the consular of Bithynia, that he should expel from Nicæa all who had not been summoned and who were rioting. Those letters may be read in tom. 4 of the Councils, col. 70.

[129] The synod being at length begun on the VIII day of October at Chalcedon in the church of St. Euphemia, The synod, celebrating Pulcheria with wonderful praises, and Dioscorus of Alexandria having been condemned and deposed on the XIII of October, the synod set forth his deposition by letters to the emperors and to St. Pulcheria. And how highly the whole synod esteemed the holy Empress and her labours for the Church these letters brilliantly show, which Labbe, tom. 4 of the Councils, col. 464, recites in this way: To the most pious and Christ-loving and most beloved of God queen and Augusta, guardian of the Catholic and orthodox faith, our daughter Pulcheria, the holy and great synod which by the grace of God and the sanction of your empire has been gathered in the metropolis of the Chalcedonians. May many good things be bestowed upon you, such as are worthy of the Saviour who gives them, O Christ-loving daughter Augusta. For when we speak to a Nursling of the faith, it is fitting to begin with prayers, and thence to offer praises to God, because according to that very Gospel word of the Lord the light of your merits shines before all men, and those who behold your good works glorify our Father who is in heaven. For behold, the brightness of your piety shines upon all: the course of apostolic doctrine has been fulfilled through you, and by the zeal of your love toward God the darkness of ignorance has been struck down and the concord of the faith declared, and no longer are the tares of heretical pestilence troublesome to us. We are in harmony with all the teachings of piety, obtaining this with the help of your labours. For through you the folds are filled for us with flocks of the faithful; through you they now come together who once had been scattered; and shepherds are restored to their sheep, and teachers to their disciples.

[130] writes to her the condemnation of Dioscorus, For he who scattered has been extinguished; the persecutor is put to sleep, the prince of the tempest driven out; and the steersmen themselves have sought their ships again upon their course, Christ prosperously directing them to understanding, who has shown forth the truth in the wonderful Leo; because, as He used the wise Peter, so He uses him also as His champion. And we indeed have desired that every member together with us in fraternal concord

should celebrate the choirs of joy. But because he alone who held the presidency of the Alexandrians drove himself of his own accord from the fellowship of so great goods, we too with sadness and tears have denied him the partnership of our communion: because our Saviour also, who wills all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, fittingly shut out from the royal hall him whom He beheld clothed in a filthy garment. And because we have found Dioscorus to be like him, for this cause we have determined, against our own wishes, that he is a stranger to the dignity of the priesthood. For he laid scandals before the brethren as a wicked man, and wickedness abounded in his mouth, refusing by his deceit the reading of the letters of the Roman Pontiff. Wherefore, because he did not show himself an example to the good, he has remained like a statue of salt, that he may terrify offenders, while by those things which he did he makes satisfaction for us who are his judges — since it was from no harshness, nay not even so much as justice still demanded, that we brought forth the sentences decreed against him.

[131] and asks the Saint's protection. Wherefore, presuming, we make known to your empire what has been resolved, that you may execrate him for his errors and approve our sentence, by whom, out of providence for the whole body, that which had rotted has been cut away. Be therefore protectors of the sound, and strengthen the faithful as pious rulers, and repay this return to the Giver of the divine providence that is in you, that at such a price you may obtain that honour which will be ended by no succession, and may purchase with the imperial crown an unfading crown. For to those who piously carry through the dispensation of earthly things heavenly things are necessarily repaid, and most of all to you, O most faithful, whose whole life, even amid the burdens of so great a sovereignty, consists in prayers; whose converse is in psalms; and with whom those seem adorned with dignity who humble themselves for God's sake; who count it religion that access to them should be easy; and who have that heavenly zeal, that they may provide the fruit of truth for all who belong to your sovereignty. Thus far the bishops and the others gathered in the council. But some things toward the end of the letter are faulty, unless perhaps the bishops toward the end of the letter, having set forth the condemnation of Dioscorus, wished to address the emperor Marcian together with Pulcheria. However that may be, from the letter it is clear how much the bishops judged the diligent piety of St. Pulcheria to have profited them.

* elsewhere, "the unquiet state of the wars"

* it was written "Nicæan" or "at Nicæa"

§ XIII. Whether St. Pulcheria came together with the emperor Marcian to the sixth session of the synod.

[ ] [Pulcheria is said in the Latin text to have been present at the Synod with Marcian:] It remains to be examined whether St. Pulcheria was present at the synod, as Marcian is known to have been present at it. In the Latin version of the synod, col. 574, it is said: There being present also, out of divine zeal and fervour of faith, the most pious and most Christian queen Augusta Pulcheria. But these words are not read in the Greek text. Étienne Baluze, in the new Collection of the Councils, col. [ ], disputes thus about these matters: These words (about the presence of Pulcheria) are lacking in all the ancient copies and in the Greek text. And that they ought to be lacking is gathered also from this, that Valentine, bishop of Philippopolis, and the bishops of the Hellespont and of Old Epirus, writing to the emperor Leo in chapters XVI, XXXV and XLVI of the encyclical codex; and the author of the Breviculum of the history of the Eutychianists; and Ferrandus the deacon in his letter to Pelagius and Anatolius; and Liberatus, Evagrius and Theophanes, make no mention of Pulcheria in this place, but only of Marcian and of the judges and of the sacred senate.

[133] That this error is ancient, however, is plain from the most ancient codices but Baluze and others deny it, because it is not read in the Greek text: in which this addition is found, and from the Breviculum cited above, in which it is written that the emperor Marcian proclaimed a synod at Nicæa, "in which both he himself and Pulcheria took their seat, and all the senate and the powers with him." At which place Labbe rightly notes in the margin that it is clear from the Acts that this is false. That true error must therefore be laid aside which taught that Pulcheria was present at the Council of Chalcedon. For if to the Romans, who were not yet Christians, it seemed unbecoming that Agrippina the mother of Nero should mount the emperor's platform and preside together with him when the legates of the Armenians were about to plead the cause of their nation before him, doubtless it ought not to have come into the mind of Christians that a woman, however pious, could preside together with the emperor in a council of most holy bishops, in which the establishing of the true faith was being treated. Thus far Baluze, with whom Tillemont assents in note 51 on St. Leo, and Pagi at the year 451, num. 31.

[134] Nevertheless Baronius, at the year 451, p. 153, and other learned writers have not doubted neither Pulcheria nor Marcian presided over the synod. that St. Pulcheria came to the council together with Marcian; nor do the arguments of Baluze, however much they bear some appearance of truth, appear to me of such weight that I should wish or be able to subscribe to them. Nay rather I judge that St. Pulcheria was present with Marcian at the sixth Session of the synod, and that this was not believed from an ancient error, but rather is denied, as I judge, by a new error. But the holy Empress did not come to the council to preside with Marcian, since not even Marcian himself presided or wished to preside, so far as matters of faith or the judgments of bishops were being treated; for he knew that this belonged to the bishops, not to the emperor. For what cause the emperor came to the synod he himself said, tom. 4 of the Councils, col. 577, namely: that, the truth being found (by the bishops), the multitude, drawn by the perverse teachings of certain men, should no longer be at variance. To reconcile peace and concord to the Synod, therefore, and to order the decrees of the council to be carried out — not to dispute about the faith or to define anything — the emperor wished to be present, as is gathered from all that he did and said in the Synod. For the same cause St. Pulcheria too could be present, whose authority was supreme, as one who had now reigned for thirty years, first with her brother Theodosius and afterwards with Marcian.

[135] The arguments of those who deny that Pulcheria was present What is adduced about Agrippina is frivolous, since the case of Pulcheria is far other than that of Agrippina. The Romans had not chosen Agrippina to rule, nor had she any power except through her son the emperor. But Pulcheria ruled as Augusta, and bore the highest care for the Catholic faith, the Pontiffs and bishops asking it and rejoicing in it. Why then was it not permitted to the holy Empress to honour with her presence the Fathers of the Council of Chalcedon, especially since she is not read to have spoken so much as a word? Why could she not be present, to show that it would be her care also that the decrees of the council should be observed? Why could she not accompany the emperor to the council, that by her silent assent she might declare that she was of one mind with him in restraining those who should oppose themselves to the decrees of the council? Why, finally, could she not together with the emperor inquire whether all were in agreement, whether the decrees of the council had been framed by common consent? Certainly in all these things nothing discordant, nothing absurd appears; nor could the presence of St. Pulcheria be useless to the council, since she must have stirred all to concord by the great veneration with which they regarded her. Wherefore on the score of propriety our opponents have nothing; and it is more to be wondered at that the Fathers rendered account of the deposition of Dioscorus to St. Pulcheria by special letters, than that they saw her present with the emperor.

[136] are examined and refuted. Now let us weigh the other arguments. Those words about the presence of Pulcheria which are in the Latin are not found in the Greek text. I answer that they could more easily have fallen out of the Greek text — just as many other things have been omitted there in the Greek text — than have been added in the Latin. Some writers speak of the presence of Marcian, and the same are silent about Pulcheria. I answer that others do not speak even of Marcian; but that a few who speak prevail over many who are silent. In the most ancient Codex of the canons of the Roman Church, published in Quesnel at p. 102, the address of Marcian to the council begins thus: When the most pious and most faithful emperor Marcian had come on the day to the most holy martyrium of Callinicus and Euphemia, there being present also, out of divine zeal and fervour of faith, the most pious and most Christian queen Augusta Pulcheria, etc. In the same Address, which Baluze himself published at col. [ ] from three ancient codices of the Colbert library, the same words about the presence of Pulcheria are read. The same is handed down in the Breviculum of the History of the Eutychianists, more confusedly however, and in such a way that Pagi would have it that it is only said that Pulcheria took her seat at Nicæa: about which, he says, there seems to be no doubt. He would rather have said: Which is certainly false; since the synod was only proclaimed at Nicæa, and held at Chalcedon. The author says, therefore, that Pulcheria was at the synod which was proclaimed at Nicæa and transferred to Chalcedon; or else he says what is false. For these are his words: Bearing it grievously that the faith had been wounded, he (Marcian) proclaims a synod at Nicæa, in which both he himself and Pulcheria took their seat, and all the senate and the powers with him.

[137] But, leaving aside other writers, let us inspect the very Acts of the synod, From the acclamations of the Fathers of the council it is clearly gathered from which it is clear that Pulcheria was present with Marcian. Very many acclamations made to Marcian and Pulcheria as to persons present clearly show that both were there. When Marcian had finished speaking, presently all wished happy things to him, then to Pulcheria, and at last to both. After the definition of the council had been read, the emperor asked whether all so believed, and they answered: We all so believe, etc. Then they acclaim Marcian as a new Constantine, etc. Presently, col. 608: Many years to the Augusta. You are the lights of the Orthodox faith, etc. May God guard her who is orthodox by her race: may God guard her who is always pious. The pious, the orthodox , who is opposed to heretics, may God guard her. All heretics you have put to flight. Nestorius and Eutyches you have persecuted Let envy be far from your empire. Worthy of the faith, worthy of Christ: let envy be far from your reign. Thus are faithful emperors honoured. May God guard your power: may God give peace to your empire. Marcian a new Constantine, Pulcheria a new Helena. You have shown forth the faith: you follow * the zeal of Helena. Your life is the defence of all: your faith is the glory of the churches. A little below, after acclamation had been made to the emperor as he was speaking: Heavenly King, guard the Augusta. Through you the faith has been strengthened… So too many more things follow, where the bishops address Pulcheria alone, or both together.

[138] It is worth now asking our opponents: Why do the bishops address Pulcheria no less than Marcian as one present, that Pulcheria was present with Marcian in the sixth session, if she was not present? Certainly in the first Session of the council also acclamation was made in praise of Pulcheria, but not acclamation as to one present. These words are read in Labbe, col. 102: Many years to the Augusta. And a little below: The Augusta cast out Nestorius: many years to the Catholic * Augusta. The acclamations which then follow are of the same kind. Similarly in the fifth Session of the council, in Labbe, col. 557, some made acclamation to her as absent

in these words: The Augusta is orthodox, the Augusta drove out Nestorius, etc. There too acclamation was made to the emperor. But no word is read there which is directed to Marcian himself or to Pulcheria as to persons present. Who now does not see how great a difference there is between these words, The Augusta cast out Nestorius, and those, All heretics you have put to flight? Who, I say, does not see that the former were said of one absent, but the latter acclaimed to one present? And so it must necessarily be said that St. Pulcheria came together with Marcian to the synod, that she might hear the definition of the faith as framed, and might herself also understand that it was approved by the common consent of the whole council. Besides, although she came to the council only once, it is likely that she was at Chalcedon as long as the council lasted.

[139] But if any are unwilling to admit this, let them explain and that she probably remained at Chalcedon during the council. why no less praise, or even greater, for what was done in the council is attributed by the Fathers of the council and by St. Leo to St. Pulcheria than to Marcian. Why do the Fathers of the council say to Pulcheria: Through you they now come together who once had been scattered; and shepherds are restored to their sheep, and teachers to their disciples — if she had remained at Constantinople and had done nothing during the council? Yet the Saint had not yet been at the council when the bishops were writing these things and were saying to her: We are in harmony with all the teachings of piety, obtaining this with the help of your labours. But I can scarcely doubt that she was residing at Chalcedon, as she had promised in the letters to Strategius cited above, where she says that her presence was awaited by the bishops who had assembled, which, God cooperating, would be there before long.

[140] The Saint's presence is also gathered Finally, from the Report of the council to St. Leo the Pope, tom. 4 of the Councils, col. 833, it is also sufficiently gathered that Pulcheria not only was at Chalcedon but even came to the church of St. Euphemia, where the Fathers were assembled. For in the said letters, where the bishops and the presence of Leo through his legates had been briefly spoken of, this follows in Latin: But the faithful emperors presided most becomingly for the ordering of things, etc. By "emperors" none other can be understood than Marcian and Pulcheria, who presided for the ordering of things, that all might be carried out becomingly and peacefully. Of these the synod speaks again in the same letters, when it says that the definition of the faith was offered to God by St. Euphemia, the patroness of the council. Take the words: Who (St. Euphemia), receiving from us the definition of the faith as her own confession, offered it to her Spouse through the most pious emperor and the Christ-loving Augusta — allaying indeed every disturbance of the adversaries, but strengthening the confession of the truth, and subscribing with the hand and tongue of all to the decrees for a demonstration.

[141] from the Report of the council to St. Leo. These things are said of St. Euphemia both because they were done in her church, and because the Fathers attributed to her patronage that all had received the definition of the faith with one accord, had confirmed it by subscription, and had approved it again in the sixth Session when it was read out before the emperor and the Empress. But in what way did St. Euphemia offer that faith to God through Marcian and Pulcheria? Namely, because the emperor, having heard the definition and the consent of all to it, presently, at col. 608, forbade further disputation about the faith, the bishops approving, and a penalty being appointed for those who should stir up tumult. But in what manner St. Euphemia at the same time offered it through the Augusta, unless she was then present at the council, I leave to those to explain who deny that Pulcheria was present.

[142] The bishops, the council being finished, honourably dismissed: St. Leo's joy. Further, many other things were then determined in that council; and it being happily finished, the bishops, honoured by the emperors (that is, by Marcian and Pulcheria), returned each to their own cities, says Theodore the Lector. Presently various letters were written to St. Leo about the acts of the council; nor does there seem room for doubt that Pulcheria too sent letters to the holy Pope about these things, although they are not extant. Certainly St. Leo in the year 452, on the XXII day of May, writes this to Pulcheria in letter 79: That the Catholic faith has been defended against heretics by the holy and God-pleasing zeal of your Clemency, and that peace has been restored to the universal Church, we rejoice ineffably with your Piety; giving thanks to the mercy of Almighty God that, except for those who loved darkness rather than light, He has suffered no one to be defrauded of the evangelical truth: so that, the mist of error being wiped away, the purest light might rise in the hearts of all; and that that darksome enemy might not exult over the weak souls of certain men, whom not only those who had stood unharmed, but even those whom he had made to waver, have overcome: so that, error being abolished, the true faith might reign throughout the whole world, and every tongue confess that the Lord Jesus Christ is in the glory of God the Father. Thus far Leo rejoicing; but that joy was in some measure tempered on account of those things which had been attempted in the council by the Orientals in favour of the bishop of Constantinople, as we shall presently see.

* Greek: "the pious, the orthodox one"

* These words enclosed in brackets are not in the Greek.

* In Greek, "you have shown"

* In Greek, "to the Catholic woman"

§ XIV. St. Leo implores the Saint's help against the ambition and other acts of Anatolius: she writes two letters against the calumnies of the Eutychians who were stirring up tumult in Palestine.

[ ] [When the Oriental bishops had assigned the second place to the see of Constantinople,] The Oriental bishops in the Council of Chalcedon had determined — the legates of the supreme Pontiff protesting, however — that the Church of Constantinople should precede the other patriarchal sees and should hold the first place after the Roman Church; and they had asked St. Leo by letters, published in Labbe, tom. 4, col. 837, that he would deign to confirm this decree by his authority; as the emperor Marcian also asked Leo by letters. Whether Pulcheria too wrote to Leo on the same matter is not established. Certainly no letter of hers is extant in which she asked it; nor can it certainly be gathered from St. Leo's letter what Pulcheria's opinion about that canon was. Nevertheless, since St. Leo was wont to implore the help of St. Pulcheria on every occasion, he opens his mind about that decree to her in the letter 79 (formerly 55) already cited, in these words: But now that the whole world has been confirmed in the unity of the Gospel, and the hearts of all the priests directed to the same understanding *, it would have been best that, concerning those matters for which the holy synod was gathered and which by the zeal of your Piety have been brought to a laudable conclusion, nothing should be introduced that was contrary to so great a good; nor that on the occasion of an episcopal synod that should be sought in common which it was not lawful to covet. For my brother and fellow bishop Anatolius, considering too little by how great a benefit of your Piety and by the assent of my favour he obtained the priesthood of the church of Constantinople, has been inflamed beyond the measure of his honour, not so much rejoicing in what he has obtained as in seeking immoderate things, etc. He goes on to argue much against the ambition of Anatolius, as he does also at greater length in the letter to Anatolius himself, and in another to Marcian.

[144] Then he addresses Pulcheria thus: Let your Piety therefore graciously receive the length of my letter, St. Leo, disapproving this, writes to Marcian and Pulcheria: in which I found it necessary to explain what I think… And, because it is your custom to labour for the peace and unity of the Church, restrain my brother Anatolius the bishop, beloved through your recommendation, in a wholesome manner in those things which will be profitable to him; that the glory of your Clemency, as it is magnified for the faith restored, may likewise be proclaimed for ambition repressed. Given on the thirteenth of the Kalends of June, in the consulship of the most illustrious Herculanus; that is, in the year 452. Further, that Marcian Augustus assented, and therefore doubtless Pulcheria also, is clear from letter 89 to Marcian, where he writes: But much confidence has been conferred on me, God working through you, in that you indicate by the addresses of your piety that you have approved my regard for the keeping of the canons of the fathers. And rightly is my joy doubled, when I learn that it most religiously pleases you both that the Nicene faith should keep its firmness, and that the privileges of the churches should remain inviolate. In letter 86 the most pious princes are more clearly said to have rebuked Anatolius about these matters. But Anatolius seems at first not to have answered St. Leo's letters; and then to have offended him by another deed also, which compelled Leo again in the following year to have recourse by letters to Marcian and Pulcheria.

[145] When Anatolius had removed from office an archdeacon who was soundly Catholic, Ætius, or Aëtius, a soundly Catholic man who had borne himself excellently against the Eutychians and had been at the Council of Chalcedon as archdeacon of the church of Constantinople, had been ordained presbyter by Anatolius, and thus removed from the archdeaconate, because at that time that office was administered by deacons and not yet by presbyters. And in the place of Aetius had been substituted Andrew the deacon, who had once favoured the Eutychians and had been among the accusers of St. Flavian. Both facts St. Leo had learned from the letters of Julian of Cos; and since either there was no just cause for this change, or at any rate St. Leo did not know the cause, he could not but suspect that Anatolius was not sufficiently estranged in mind from the Eutychians; especially because he had once been ordained bishop by the supporters of Eutyches, and because he had not yet given satisfaction to Leo concerning the matters we have just related. Wherefore the holy Pontiff in the year 453, in the month of March, wrote about these things to Marcian, to Julian of Cos, and to St. Pulcheria. In letter 84 to Marcian he says that he does not know the cause why he should remove a man of the Catholic faith … from his office under the appearance of an honour, and should suddenly transfer the dispensation of the whole cause and of ecclesiastical care to Andrew the Eutychianist; and he asks the emperor to deign to rebuke Anatolius as is needful.

[146] and had substituted for him a suspect man; St. Leo writes to Marcian, to Julian, In letter 86 to Julian he suggests his suspicions about that act of Anatolius, but says that he gives room for a voluntary amendment. Nevertheless, he says, I have written to the most clement prince and to the most pious Augusta about those things which pertain to the keeping of ecclesiastical peace: and I do not doubt that they, out of the devotion of their faith, will provide that the condemned heresy may not, against the glory of their own work, be able to sprout again. Then, commending to him the care against the Nestorians and Eutychians, he mentions Marcian and Pulcheria again thus: And because so great is the faith * of the glorious princes that you can confidently suggest to them what needs to be made known, use their piety for the advantage of the universal Church. These things show that St. Leo attributed no less praise to Marcian and Pulcheria when he wrote to others than he attributes to them in the letters directed to themselves.

[147] and to St. Pulcheria about these matters, Letter 85 to St. Pulcheria, written for the same cause, I transfer hither entire: Leo the Bishop to Pulcheria Augusta. Since there exist many proofs by which the affection of your piety in the love of the Church of God is made manifest, deservedly, as often as any scandals arise, your help is desired: that the faith which, by your exertions, against the fabrications of heretics

has been defended, may obtain the lasting firmness of a secure peace. For what does it profit that the adversaries of truth have been crushed without, if we should have the same men living again within the Lord's folds? What therefore I have learned to have been done concerning the person of my son Ætius makes me exceedingly anxious, and compels me by a sure reasoning to fear lest I should have to repent that, at your exhortation, I consented to think better things of the bishop of Constantinople, who had been ordained by the assailants of the faith, since he was aided by so great a testimony of your Piety, so that the weakness of his ordination might not burden him where your intervention was afforded. Whence I had begun to rejoice that he was said to honour the memory of blessed Flavian and to resist the attempts of heretics. But I grieve that he (as the lamentable complaint of the aforesaid man shows) has changed for the worse, and has now appointed as archdeacon the very man whom he himself professed to have been rejected by him, who had shown himself before us a defender of the Eutychian heresy. Whom, because he has now set over ecclesiastical affairs, he is convicted of showing his favour to him on account of his heretical perversity: who, even if by a great satisfaction he could have deserved indulgence, ought by no means to have been preferred to those who had remained in the faith.

[148] Wherefore, since it is not hidden from your Clemency how much danger is nourished either by shameful sloth or by crafty wickedness, asking that she correct Anatolius. deign to recall the bishop by the authority of your Clemency to the profession of his faith. Let him not draw these stains upon himself, nor despise the esteem which he acquired by your favour; let him cut off the fellowship of the heretic whom he lately removed from himself, and cease to persecute him whom he ought to have held in greater favour. And I rejoice that you were so present to his innocence that your Piety came to the aid of his grief with a worthy consolation. As regards my brother, your venerator, Julian the bishop, estimate by the judgment of the Apostolic See how much your favour toward him ought to grow; since in the cause of the faith, to which your Glory ministers, I have delegated my office to him so far that, not departing from the observance which is owed to you, he does not cease to present me to your Piety: carrying out in all things my solicitude for the guarding of the faith and for ecclesiastical discipline, and suggesting at fit moments what may profit the universal Church: so that in him neither may your protection be lacking to the Catholics whom we wish to be helped, nor my obedience to you. Given on the sixth of the Ides of March, in the consulship of the most illustrious Opilio. That Leo obtained what he sought with so much zeal is plain from his letter 106, and from the very modest letter of Anatolius to Leo which precedes it. But it is not established how much Pulcheria could accomplish in these matters, since she died in the same year.

[149] But the Saint's virtue was exercised in another way also by seditious heretics, When a certain Theodosius, an impostor in Palestine, who did not fear to calumniate her as a Nestorian. This affair was begun from the time of the Council of Chalcedon; but I have kept it for this place, because it was ended later. There was living in Palestine, as we saw before, Eudocia Augusta, widow of the emperor Theodosius, greatly devoted to Dioscorus. Now while the Council of Chalcedon was being held, there was living at Constantinople a certain Theodosius, a seditious monk, who had been driven from his monastery, as Evagrius says, book 2, chap. 5, and from his country, as the Apophthegmata of the Fathers have it, in Cotelier's Monuments of the Greek Church, tom. 1, p. 415. Further, Theodosius, having heard of the acts of the council, suddenly set out for Palestine, and was there before Juvenal, bishop of Jerusalem; and assailing the synod with calumnies, as though it had confirmed the doctrines of Nestorius, he burst into the holy city (Jerusalem), where indeed he carried off all the monks to his party under the appearance of divine zeal; he carried off also the Augusta (Eudocia), who was then there; and thus, using her help, he seized by force the see of Jerusalem, snatched by slaughters, and perpetrated other things against the laws and canons. So in the said Cotelier, where he is also said to have ordained several bishops and to have done many other things by violence.

[150] was calumniating the synod as Nestorian, and by guile and force Of these matters not a few other writers also treat, such as Evagrius already cited, Theophanes, and other more recent writers. Cyril, in the Life of St. Euthymius the abbot, published by us in Latin at the XX of January, and afterwards given in Greek and Latin by the Benedictines in the Greek Analecta, seems to be preferred to the rest, because he is a contemporary. He, in the Analecta at p. 55, where he had said that the Council of Chalcedon was at once approved by St. Euthymius, goes on thus: But when the report spread that the great Euthymius had received the definition of faith that had been promulgated, it would have come to pass that all the monks would embrace the same, had not Theodosius stood in the way — a monk in habit indeed, but a forerunner of Antichrist: who, when he had come into Palestine, carried off with him Eudocia Augusta, who was then there, and seduced the whole monastic order, inveighing against the Council of Chalcedon as though it had overturned the right faith and confirmed the doctrine of Nestorius.

[151] had seized the see of Jerusalem and deceived most of the monks: And so, using slaughters of his own, he usurped in barbarous fashion the patriarchal throne of Jerusalem, and, war being declared upon the holy canons, ordained many bishops while the bishops were still at the council; and, very many slaughters and wars being accomplished, within twenty months he was able to get possession of everything. And so, when almost all the citizens and the monks of the desert were following his apostasy, the disciples of the great Euthymius alone out of the whole desert did not suffer themselves to do the same. He then adds that St. Euthymius, having been tempted in vain by Theodosius, withdrew to another place on account of his violence. And on these words, as regards the time of the event, it may be observed that Theodosius was in Palestine and used the authority of a bishop before the end of the year 451, since he is said to have ordained bishops while the bishops were still at the council, and therefore in the month of October or November, if the words be taken strictly. He could, immediately after the condemnation of Dioscorus, or after the framing of the definition of the faith, before the rest was completed in the council, have sailed to Jerusalem, and so have arrived there either toward the end of October or at the beginning of November. Nevertheless it is more likely that the bishops were not ordained by him while the council was still going on, but rather before the return of the bishops from the council; and that the words alleged are so to be explained.

[152] these write insolent letters to Pulcheria as to a Nestorian: Further, while that impious Theodosius had drawn to himself almost all the monks of Palestine, partly by fraud and partly by force, the superiors of the monasteries, deceived by him, together with the monks, sent very insolent letters to St. Pulcheria, whom they traduced as a Nestorian, as they did the Council of Chalcedon also. These letters were doubtless addressed to her in the year 452. When the Saint had received the said letters, which are not extant, and had communicated them to Marcian, and he too had been informed from elsewhere about what was being done in Palestine, St. Pulcheria wrote back letters to the archimandrites and monks of Palestine, and in them so confuted the calumnies spread about herself and the council that at the same time she exhorted them all to lay aside their error and to live quietly according to their monastic profession. At the same time the emperor Marcian wrote to the same men, adding just threats to his reasons, and at the same time sending royal orders to Dorotheus the count, prefect of the Roman soldiery in Palestine, who probably at the beginning of the rebellion had not sufficient forces to repress the violence of the wicked Theodosius. Marcian's letters are found in Labbe, tom. 4 of the Councils, col. 855 and following, and in the same place there follow the letters of Pulcheria at col. 873.

[153] In these the Saint first says: The petitions indeed which you have directed to our Piety show a token of your error. but she declares her own faith and that of the council, and gently exhorts them, Then she asserts that she and the emperor wish to act with clemency; she disapproves of the things done by them against venerable religion and the common discipline; she exhorts them to lay aside their error and to acknowledge the truth of the faith; she sets forth briefly her own faith and that of the council, and at last goes on thus: Recognizing therefore the simplicity and truth of our faith, which we strive to keep according to the true tradition of the holy fathers; knowing also the orthodox faith and most clement intention of the most tranquil lord of affairs, the husband of my piety, and believing the very facts through which, looking only to piety toward God, he has put off chastising with a worthy vengeance those who have presumed thus to sin, and hoping that in time to come you will be loaded with honour and with our benefits — put away henceforth all doubt from your minds, and, continuing in your monasteries and reverently leading the solitary life, do not separate yourselves from the right faith and the truth of the churches, lest (which our clemency does not expect) the name of heresy be ascribed to you as to assailants of the truth.

[154] Know also that his tranquillity, by divine letters addressed to Dorotheus the count, [that they may come to their senses: Marcian too, writing to the same men, adds threats to admonitions:] has ordered that a most searching inquiry be made concerning the carrying off of the goods which are said to have been seized by the Samaritans; and whatever is shown to have been plundered, he has decreed that it be restored by them to the most holy churches and to those who lost it; and that the authors of the plundering must undergo the lawful penalties. But your monasteries and dwellings he has commanded to be preserved, by the solicitude of the same man, free from the importunity of the soldiers and without molestation. For his tranquillity believes with us that by this providence and exhortation you will both repent of your former deeds and will be able to be united to the Catholic Church in concordant faith, in peace and unanimity, the orthodox religion being preserved. The letter of Marcian is conformable to this one; but it explains more fully the crimes committed and threatens penalties if they do not come to their senses. The letters of both were written at the same time, about the beginning of the year 453. For St. Leo the Pope, having seen copies of them, testified his joy about them in three letters given in the same year, on the XXI day of March.

[155] In Letter 88 to Julian of Cos he speaks of them thus: St. Leo wonderfully praises the letters of both. But concerning the edict of the most Christian emperor, in which he showed what the unskilled madness of certain monks deserved, and concerning the reply of the most pious Augusta, in which she rebuked the superiors of the monasteries, I signify that I greatly rejoice; not being ignorant that this fervour of faith is conferred on them by divine inspiration, so that it may appear to all that their excellence is not only of royal eminence but also of priestly holiness. In Letter 89 to Marcian he signifies that his own decree, which he wonderfully praises, had become known through Julian. Letter 90 to Pulcheria I transfer hither in part: Although I have now received no letters of your Piety, yet, the most glorious prince having written, I have rejoiced at his condescension no otherwise than if the addresses of your Serenity also had been rendered to me. Whence it behoved me to keep the custom due to my office, by which I might signify to your Clemency that I rejoice unreservedly, and ask of God with unceasing prayers that He preserve you in all prosperity both for the Roman commonwealth and for the Catholic Church. But as regards the vigour of your faith, by which you unceasingly offer to the Lord a sacrifice of praise, how great thanks I give to God I am not able to recount: since we know that in the princes of our time there is not only royal power but also priestly teaching. My brother Julian the bishop also having informed us, there came to us in

copies of your ordinances those most healthful sanctions by which you deigned to chastise by sparing, and to punish by teaching, the insane ignorance of the monks: so that, if the divine mercy shall have turned them to penitence, they may be washed with many tears both from wicked slaughters and from the blasphemies of heretics. He adds that he has written letters to confirm the Council of Chalcedon, and commends Julian.

[156] [The tyranny of the impostor Theodosius seems to have ended in the month of June of the year 453:] Now it must be examined what effect both the letters of Marcian and Pulcheria and the other orders of Marcian had in Palestine. Tillemont, in note 58 on St. Leo, disputes about the time at which the impostor Theodosius was compelled to flee and to leave Jerusalem. He judges that this happened toward the end of the year 453; although at the outset he adduces some things by which he believes it is suggested that the tyranny of Theodosius was ended about the middle of the year 452. But so great a difficulty in assigning the end of that tyranny does not appear to me as Tillemont imagined for himself. Theodosius came into Palestine and there presently prevailed, when the Fathers of the Council of Chalcedon were still at Chalcedon, as we have seen from the Life of St. Euthymius. And so the beginning of that tyranny seems to be fixed in the month of November of the year 451. That tyranny was protracted to twenty months, as the said Life again testifies, with Theophanes and others agreeing in it. But it is not necessary that we should say those months were completed. And so from November of the year 451 to June of the year 453 we have twenty months. Nor is it necessary on other grounds that we should say Theodosius was at Jerusalem after the month of June of the year 453, since all those things which drew Tillemont in different directions can easily be accommodated to this era, and in no way contradict it, provided they be explained more rightly than they were set out by him. Besides, the death of St. Pulcheria, before which the flight of Theodosius must necessarily be placed, as we shall see from her letter to Bassa, does not permit us to believe that the tyranny of Theodosius lasted after the month of June.

[157] nor has anything been brought forward by Tillemont The first difficulty with which Tillemont torments himself is drawn from the letter of the emperor Marcian to the holy synod gathered in Palestine, which was written after the flight of Theodosius, and published in tom. 4 of the Councils, col. 877 and following. Marcian there, having related the crimes of Theodosius, subjoins this: And when these things had come to the ears of our serenity, as soon as they were heard, the crimes were repressed by a just sentence — one which nevertheless did not inflict a punishment sufficiently worthy of his wrongs, but chastised humanely. And when he had perceived this, he fled from Jerusalem and avoids all Palestine …, and hides himself on Mount Sinai together with certain partakers of his wicked counsels, etc. From these words the flight of Theodosius would seem to be fixed about the middle of the year 452, says Tillemont, since Theodosius began to hold sway before the end of the year 451. But he proceeds too hastily: for Marcian had to be well informed about everything, not by some popular rumour, but by him who was in charge of military affairs in Palestine. Then he had to consider with what forces he should equip his commander, that he might have strength sufficient to repress the rebels. Soldiers had to be sent from every side, to bring back to obedience a far-distant province which was almost wholly in arms.

[158] All these things required much time, especially since Marcian probably sent reinforcements from other provinces only after he had understood that Dorotheus the count had not forces sufficient to extinguish the rebellion. which compels us to say it was ended earlier. And so, when the emperor says that the crimes were repressed as soon as they were heard, he is speaking of crimes continued over many months, and says that they were repressed by the remedies then at once begun to be applied. Nor is there any doubt that he is speaking of that edict which, about the end of the year 452 or the beginning of 453, was sent into Palestine together with the letters of St. Pulcheria. And since a sufficient number of soldiers doubtless flowed thither at the same time, Theodosius did not dare to resist longer, but about the month of June fled to Mount Sinai. But, says Tillemont, Marcian seems to have imposed a garrison on the city of Jerusalem from the year 452: for the rebels in their letters to Pulcheria complained that they were burdened by the soldiers ordered to guard the city of Ælia, and that their monasteries were disturbed, as is read in the said decree of Marcian, col. 861. I answer that the passage was ill understood by Tillemont: for the reference is to a garrison which had been at Jerusalem before the rebellion, or at any rate to those soldiers who were forced to yield to the prevailing Theodosius. Hence it is not necessary that we should say Theodosius remained at Jerusalem after the garrison sent thither by Marcian had entered the city; much less that we should assert that a garrison had already been placed there in the year 452.

[159] Now let us see what reasons he brought forward by which he fixes the flight of Theodosius about the end of the year 453. The reasons are refuted by which Tillemont wished to show He alleges first that Theodosius held sway for twenty months. But these bring us only to the month of June, as we have seen. He says, secondly, that St. Euthymius, who had fled the tyranny of Theodosius, returned only after two years, as it is in the Life, p. 60. But since he admits that one year and some months is taken for two years, this favours my opinion more than his own; especially since Euthymius is not said to have returned at the same time at which Theodosius fled, but probably returned some months later, after he had understood that all was at peace. He says, thirdly, that St. Leo, when on the XXV of June of the year 453 he was writing his letter 96 to Eudocia Augusta, who was staying in Palestine, supposed that the monks of Palestine had been rebels up to that time. That is indeed so; but it agrees equally with the era fixed by me as with Tillemont's opinion, because Leo could not know at Rome what had been done a little before, or was being done at the same time, at Jerusalem. Pagi indeed, at the year 453, num. 4, having noted the XXV day of June on which the letter was given, subjoins this: From which we understand that on the day when those letters were written the Palestinian tumults were not yet quieted, and that what we said in the preceding year is true, that they lasted until about the month of July of the present year. But such reasoning is worthy rather of laughter or of pity than of refutation. But what Pagi says at the year 452, num. 4, about the beginning of the disturbances favours my era: for he asserts that they began in the month of October or November, in which the Council of Chalcedon was held.

[160] that the tyranny of Theodosius lasted Tillemont says, fourthly, that St. Leo did not learn of the restoration of Juvenal the bishop before the IX day of January of the year 454, as is clear from his letters 99 and 100. By that argument chiefly he contends that the flight of Theodosius must be fixed toward the end of the year 453. But, if we consider everything rightly, this very reason favours our opinion more than Tillemont's. For it is nowhere said that Juvenal recovered his see at exactly the same time at which Theodosius fled from it. Nay rather, from Leo's Letter 99 to Marcian it is gathered that he returned only after the disturbances were wholly quieted, when the people desired him. Whereas therefore, he says, in the provinces of Palestine the peoples of God have been recalled to unity of faith, and, the movements of the erring being repressed, the hearts of all have been directed to evangelical and apostolic doctrine, as you deign to indicate; and whereas my brother and fellow bishop Juvenal has at length been permitted to return to the see of his priesthood, the people no longer resisting but desiring it — this is the work of your faith, the fruit of your piety. These words show that Juvenal returned to Jerusalem after all seemed to be at peace, and therefore a considerable time after the flight of Theodosius. Evagrius agrees, book 2, chap. 5, saying of Marcian: First indeed he orders Theodosius to be brought to himself at court. Then he sends Juvenal — namely, when he had heard that Theodosius had escaped by flight and that Juvenal's return was desired. Whether therefore Juvenal was then at Constantinople or was hiding elsewhere, he could easily have come to Jerusalem two or even three months later than Theodosius had gone out of it.

[161] until almost the end of the year 453. If now we consider that the news of Juvenal's reception at Jerusalem had first to come to Marcian at Constantinople, and that letters had thence to be sent to Rome to Leo, we shall not greatly wonder that they were brought to Leo only on the IX day of January. Indeed I have noticed, from the letters of St. Leo sent to Constantinople or received thence, that they commonly stuck nearly two months on the way. And since these were carried in the winter season, they could have been on the road even much longer, on account of the uncertainty of navigation. Besides, we do not know whether the emperor, having received the news of Juvenal's reception, wrote at once to Leo: for he could have awaited a second messenger, that he might write more circumstances. But in whatever way it came about that St. Leo was informed somewhat later of the restoration of Juvenal — whether because he came to Jerusalem a good while after the flight of Theodosius, or because the messengers were sent later, or because they were forced to stick long on the way, or on account of all these together — it seems to me certain that St. Pulcheria before her death, which we shall more probably fix with Tillemont himself in the month of July of the year 453, was informed of the flight of Theodosius, which for that reason I should not dare to place after the month of June. For it is clear from her letter to Bassa, the superior of a certain monastery of Jerusalem, that Theodosius was no longer at Jerusalem when the Saint was writing it.

[162] The Saint's last letter to Bassa, in which the crimes of Theodosius, This last letter of the holy Empress, which brilliantly shows the fervour of her faith and her Apostolic spirit, I transfer hither entire from Labbe, tom. 4 of the Councils, col. 872, where it bears this title: A copy of the royal letters written to Bassa, superior of a monastery in Ælia, by the most pious and Christ-loving Augusta Pulcheria. And the letter itself runs thus in Latin: We judge that the zeal and mind of our serenity toward the holy and orthodox faith, and how we strive that it be everywhere enlarged and celebrated, is doubtful to no one; but most of all we are confident that your reverence knows it certainly. But since in these times there has arisen an imitator of the error of Simon, or rather a forerunner of Antichrist, Theodosius — and how he has treated the city of Ælia and disturbed the most holy churches of Palestine, perpetrating innumerable evils against divine and human laws, and calumniating the holy and universal synod gathered at Chalcedon, as though it had disturbed and shaken the creed of the three hundred and eighteen holy fathers, and had taught that two sons and two Christs and two persons must be adored, is not hidden from your reverence — our piety judged it necessary, by our sacred letters sent before, to refute the lies of the said wicked man, and to declare our faith handed down to us from our forebears, and what we believe according to the creed of the three hundred and eighteen Fathers; which indeed the holy synod held at Chalcedon confirmed, adding nothing and taking nothing away.

[163] But since with kindness and humanity

of our Lord and Saviour Christ, and sets out her own faith and that of the Council of Chalcedon those who inhabit the city of Ælia had come to know the true and orthodox faith of my serenity and of the most religious lord of the world, the husband of my majesty, they hastened to it, and celebrated with many praises our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ and our power, and prayed for pardon of the offences which they had before committed. And concerning them indeed the most sacred and most pious lord and husband of my serenity, using his wonted humanity, issued that decree which befits his piety. But our serenity, considering the calumnies of the aforesaid wicked and impious Theodosius, and fearing lest he may have circumvented some of the simpler religious women, and by his tricks and deceits have been able to lead them away from the truth, and wishing to blot out on every side the convicted impiety of the said wicked man: therefore we direct to you these our sacred letters, in which we declare the faith handed down to us from the fathers, and we wish it to be made manifest through you to all women consecrated to God: namely, that we keep the faith according to the creed set forth by the three hundred and eighteen holy fathers; but that we detest the impiety of Photinus, and of Apollinaris, and of Valentinus, and of Nestorius; and besides these, the novel and wicked opinion of Eutyches: and we believe that our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ was born of the Holy Spirit and of Mary the Virgin Mother of God; confessing one and the same Son Jesus, perfect God and the same perfect man; truly God and the same truly man; and we always adore Christ the Saviour as in no way divided or separated or changed: desiring to persevere in this faith without wavering, and anathematizing those who say two sons, or two Christs, or two persons; or who have said, or written, or dare to say it. the flight of Theodosius was known to the Saint before her death.

[164] Which holy and orthodox faith the universal synod also, which was lately held at Chalcedon, confirmed: and it made neither addition nor subtraction in the holy creed set forth by the three hundred and eighteen holy fathers, and condemned the perverse opinion of Eutyches alone, by a vote in accord with the holy fathers. Wherefore let your reverence, having learned the true and orthodox faith of our serenity, strive to pray assiduously for us and for our empire. Thus far St. Pulcheria, upon whose letter I shall observe a few things. She says: In these times there has arisen … Theodosius. She knew, therefore, that he was then no longer at Jerusalem. Secondly, she says that the inhabitants of the city of Ælia, that is, of Jerusalem, hastened to her faith and Marcian's when they had learned it from their letters, of which we treated above, and whose fruit we see here. Thirdly, there is no word in this letter about the return of Juvenal the bishop, as there is none in Marcian's letter at col. 877, which speaks of the flight of Theodosius. Wherefore I judge that both were sent at the same time, between the flight of Theodosius and the return of Juvenal; and hence also it appears that Juvenal did not return immediately after the flight of Theodosius.

* elsewhere, "the spirit of the sense"

* elsewhere, "clemency"

§ XV. The death of St. Pulcheria; concerning the year, month and day of which there is a discussion.

[ ] St. Pulcheria died in the year 453, Concerning the year of St. Pulcheria's death there can rightly be no doubt, since writers, both ancient and more recent, sufficiently agree that she died in the year 453. And this year is even more certainly drawn out from the letters of the Saint and of St. Leo the Pope. For that the Saint wrote letters in the year 453 to Bassa we have already seen. And the last letter of St. Leo to her was given on the XXI of March in the same year 453. If he wrote other later letters to the Saint, they have perished. But neither does St. Leo ever make mention of Pulcheria as living after the middle of the year 453 in his letters to Julian of Cos, as he was wont to do before; nor does he seem to have written any letters to Pulcheria herself after the middle of that year. Rightly therefore did Marcellinus in the Chronicle place her death at the year 453, and rightly too the Paschal Chronicle at the same year; but in both Chronicles the day and month of her death is passed over. Theophanes, at the third year of Marcian, which coincides with 453, has it thus concerning the Saint's death: In this year, many things having been gloriously accomplished and all her goods left to the poor, the blessed and pious Pulcheria fell asleep in Christ. Her goods, though immense, Marcian most willingly assigned over. And she herself built very many sacred buildings or oratories, and many public places for the poor and lodgings for pilgrims, and cemeteries for the same when dead, among which is numbered the church of the holy martyr Laurence.

[166] in the month of July, as Idatius, a contemporary, has it. Idatius in his Chronicle adds the month of her death in these words: In the third year of the reign of the prince Marcian, the queen Pulcheria dies, in the month of July. This opinion about the month of her death pleases Tillemont, at least as the more probable, and deservedly, because we have no equally ancient writer who made mention of the day or month on which the Saint died. Nevertheless Baronius, at the year 453, fixes the Saint's death in the month of September, and on the eleventh day, if the passage has been rightly printed in the Plantin edition. But I judge that Baronius wished to fix her death on the X day of September, because on that day she is in the Greek Calendars, which he followed in the Roman Martyrology. Du Cange, in the Byzantine Imperial Families, pp. 70 and 71: Pulcheria died, her husband surviving her, in the month of July, as Idatius, or in September, as Marianus Scotus have written. But I could not find this in Marianus Scotus; nor would his authority be great in these matters. Pagi, at the same year, num. 5, also discusses the day of St. Pulcheria's death, but here he was too hasty. For what he attributes to Du Cange concerning Pulcheria, the latter wrote concerning Marcian; and he followed without sufficient examination Noris, who discusses these matters in the Epochs of the Syro-Macedonians, dissertation 3, chap. 4.

[167] For it is certain that Noris is in error, because he attributes to the death of St. Pulcheria that era Noris fixed her death in the month of February on no other ground, which the Chronicle otherwise called Alexandrian — which with Du Cange we call the Paschal Chronicle — ascribes to the invention of the head of St. John the Baptist. The words of Noris are, at p. 170: The same author of the Alexandrian Chronicle writes that Pulcheria Augusta died "in the consulship of Vincomalus and Opilio, in the month Peritius, on the XII of the Kalends of March," etc. I answer that Noris is in error, and that this is clear from the very Chronicle which he cites, if we inspect the Greek words. I subjoin the text, as it is read after the noting of the consuls Vincomalus and Opilio: Επὶ τούτων τῶν ὑπάτων ἐτελεύτησεν ἡ δέσποινα Πουλχερία. Rightly in Latin in Du Cange: In this consulship died the lady Pulcheria. Then follows a longer notice about the invention of the head of St. John the Baptist in this way: Επὶ τῶν προκειμένων ὑπάτων Βινκομάλου καὶ Οπιλίωνος, βασιλευόντων Οὐαλεντινιανοῦ και Μαρκιανοῦ αὐγούστων, μηνὶ περιτίῳ, πρὸ β᾽ Καλανδῶν Μαρτίων, τῇ μέσῃ ἑβδομάδι τῶν νηστειῶν, ἔτους Σηρο-Μακεδόνων ψξγ᾽, Αντιοχέων φα᾽, καὶ υκε᾽ ἔτους, ἀφ᾽ οὗ ἀπετμήθη ὁ ἅγιος πρόδρομος προφήτης καὶ Βαπτιστὴς Ιωάννης, ἡυρέθη ἡ τιμία αὐτοῦ κεφαλὴ ἐν τῇ Εμεσίων πόλεὶ.

[168] These words must be rendered into Latin in this way: which he drew from the Paschal Chronicle ill understood: In the aforesaid consulship of Vincomalus and Opilio, in the reign of Valentinian and Marcian, Augusti, in the month Peritius, on the XII of the Kalends of March, in the middle week of the fast, in the year of the Syro-Macedonians 763, in the year of the Antiochenes 501, and in the 425th year after the holy forerunner, prophet and Baptist John was beheaded, his venerable head was found in the city of the Emesenes. It is clear from this literal and genuine version that the day of the death of St. Pulcheria is not treated here, but the invention of the head of St. John the Baptist. If this is not so clear from the Latin text given in Rader, which differs much from the genuine one; if neither Du Cange's rendering, in which a single word is redundant, has it clearly enough, the Greek words should have been consulted, since the Chronicle is written in Greek. The whole foundation of Noris and Pagi therefore falls, who from this passage of the Chronicle alone, ill understood, would have it that the Saint died on the XVIII of February. But if the Chronicle did have something about the death of Pulcheria — which it by no means has about her — the authority of Idatius ought far to prevail, especially since it is established from other sources also that the Saint lived some months after February of the year 453.

[169] Wherefore I find nothing more probable than that the Saint died in the month of July, In the month of July, then, she died, but on an uncertain day: as Idatius, a contemporary writer, has it, who has left the day unknown to us. Besides, the letter to Bassa cited above does not seem to have been written before the month of July, as is gathered from what was said in §14: this reason therefore is also added, which persuades that her death ought not to be placed earlier. On the contrary, that we should not place it later is persuaded also by the third year of the emperor Marcian, in which the chief writers testify that she died: for since Marcian began to reign in the month of August, Pulcheria would have died in the fourth year of Marcian if she had lived to the X day of September of the year 453, on which the Greek Calendars fix her death. Nicephorus, book 15, chap. 15, deferred the Saint's death to the sixth year of Marcian; but this contradicts all the more ancient writers.

[170] The Saint's burial, virginity; her pious testament. More rightly does he say concerning the Saint's burial: But she herself was laid in the church of the holy Apostles. That St. Pulcheria died a virgin most writers expressly testify, and none contradicts it, so that there was never any doubt about that matter. Equally do they agree that all her goods were bequeathed by her to the poor before her death, and that this pious testament of hers was approved by Marcian. Wherefore concerning these things I add only the words of Theodore the Lector at p. 552: The exceedingly pious Pulcheria Augusta met her last day, having gloriously accomplished many things in her life and having at her death left all her goods to the poor. Marcian was unwilling to invalidate her testament; but he willingly supplied the funds for completing all that she had ordered.

§ XVI. The various foundations of churches and of pious places which are attributed to St. Pulcheria.

[ ] Many pious foundations of St. Pulcheria: Sozomen, cited at num. 25, asserts that so many churches, lodgings for the poor and for pilgrims, and monasteries were built and endowed with revenues by St. Pulcheria, that it would be a long task to recount them all. Theophanes too speaks of them in general terms, whose words I gave at num. 165, adding cemeteries to those already recounted. Theodore the Lector has it thus concerning them: And Pulcheria built very many churches: namely that which is at Blachernæ; likewise that which is at Chalcoprateia; another also which is called that of the Hodegoi; likewise the church of St. Laurence the martyr. I have been unwilling to mix these pious foundations with the Saint's other deeds, because they can be brought back to any order of time only with difficulty. Wherefore in this place I shall treat of each separately, lest this pious liberality of the Saint, which is among the chief ornaments of her life, should seem to have been passed over without examination.

[172] she founded, at the beginning of Marcian's reign, the church at Blachernæ: Concerning the founding of the church at Blachernæ, which is reckoned in the first place by Theodore, Theophanes speaks thus at the first year of Marcian, p. 90: Moreover the blessed Pulcheria built many other churches to Christ; but especially that which is seen dedicated to our Lady the Mother of God, worthy to be celebrated, at Blachernæ, at the beginning of the reign of the most pious emperor Marcian. Zonaras, p. 46, agrees about the time, as does Cedrenus, p. 344, where he has this: Further, Pulcheria, besides many other churches, chiefly founded the building at Blachernæ, and consecrated it to the Mother of God, when Marcian had lately entered upon the empire. There are added other Greek writers also, who attributed the construction of that excellent basilica to Pulcheria alone, so that there seems no room for doubt about this matter, although in Rader's Alexandrian Chronicle, p. 442, the construction both of the church of Chalcoprateia and of that of Blachernæ is partly attributed to Marcian.

[173] Procopius of Cæsarea, book 1 On the Buildings of Justinian, chap. 3, assigns to us another founder of this church, namely the emperor Justin. Let us hear his words: Procopius, attributing that foundation to Justin, does not deserve credit: Before the walls (of Constantinople), at Blachernæ (that is the name of the place), he set a church to the Mother of God (for we must ascribe to him also the acts of his uncle Justin, since he administered his empire with supreme authority). That church is on the shore of the sea, renowned for religion and most august: whose breadth has an apt proportion, and no mean one, with its length. You would see nothing else by which it is supported above and below except pieces of Parian marble arranged in the form of columns. The columns stand everywhere in straight rows, except in the middle, where they recede inward and curve. Above all let him marvel who has set foot there at the lofty structure without danger of ruin, and at a magnificence which has nothing unshapely. So indeed Procopius — perhaps because Justin the elder, whose acts he says are to be attributed liberally enough to Justinian, restored something in the said church. Certainly he does not deserve credit against the authority of Theodore the Lector, who attributes the construction of that church to St. Pulcheria, and whom very many others have followed, since no one, so far at least as I know, agrees with Procopius.

[174] Nicephorus Callistus, book 14, chap. 2, saying of Pulcheria [Nicephorus writes rightly about the construction of the church, but not so about the relics brought into it.] that the sacred churches which she magnificently raised, and the dwellings of men who love God and the monasteries of monks which she built, cannot easily be numbered — appointing for them perpetual expenditures and all things necessary for those who should devote themselves to piety in them — among the few of which he says he will treat, celebrates thus the church built at Blachernæ: For her work is the sacred church of the Mother of God which is called Blachernæ, a dwelling judged worthy of the Mother of the Word herself to inhabit. … Whose (the Mother of God's) divine coffin and burial bands, when they were found, she laid up there with the greatest veneration. But these last things he does not rightly attribute to St. Pulcheria: for if it is true — which I do not here examine — that the tomb of the most holy Virgin together with the sacred bands found in it was sent to Constantinople by Juvenal, bishop of Jerusalem, as the same Nicephorus relates in book 15, chap. 14, that happened after the death of St. Pulcheria. For they are said to have been sent after Juvenal had been restored to his see. But he was restored after the death of St. Pulcheria, or at any rate not long before her death. Hence Nicephorus himself, agreeing but little with himself, suggests that the said relics came to Constantinople and were laid in the church of Blachernæ when St. Pulcheria had already died. For, saying nothing of Pulcheria, he says: This was done while Marcian was still living. More about the said church, frequently restored and at last wholly destroyed, may be seen in Du Cange, Christian Constantinople, book 4, p. 83.

[175] The church at Chalcoprateia, which Theodore places in the second place among Pulcheria's foundations, The church built at Chalcoprateia; was perhaps founded before the aforesaid one at Blachernæ. Certainly most writers place its construction about the end of the reign of Theodosius. Theophanes, p. 88, at the last year of Theodosius, where he had said that Pulcheria had been recalled to the court, subjoins concerning that church: At that time she consecrated to the Mother of God the church of Chalcoprateia, which had before been a synagogue of the Jews. These things are said not of Theodosius, as Du Cange writes in Christian Constantinople, book 4, p. 85, but most clearly of Pulcheria, as is clear from what precedes. Clearly likewise does Cedrenus speak of Pulcheria at p. 343, where he altogether agrees with Theophanes in these words: Then also she built to the Mother of God the building of Chalcoprateia, since that place had before been a synagogue of the Jews. Glycas, however, at p. 260, attributes the construction of this church to Theodosius, as does Joel also at p. 170. But these are too recent for their authority to be compared with the authority of Theodore the Lector and Theophanes, whom Cedrenus and Nicephorus support. That the Alexandrian Chronicle, as I said above, ascribes the construction of this church to Marcian and Pulcheria together ought not to detain us either, since it seems to have been built before the reign of Marcian.

[176] which Justin the Younger is said to have restored: But some difficulty is presented by what Theophanes writes at the 12th year of Justin the Younger, p. 209, where he has it thus: In this year Justin made the synagogue which was at Chalcoprateia, taken from the Jews, a church of our most holy Lady the Mother of God, next to that which is commonly called the Great. Codinus, in the Origins of Constantinople, p. 43, in some fashion reconciles these words of Theophanes with the others given before, writing thus: At Chalcoprateia in the time of Constantine the Great the Jews dwelt and sold bronze wares there (hence the name of the place). But after a hundred and thirty-two years Theodosius the Younger expelled them thence, and, the place being cleansed, built a church of the holy Mother of God. And this church, cast down by an earthquake, Justin rebuilt, who was created emperor from being curopalates, and moreover bestowed landed possessions upon it. Codinus, with Glycas and Joel, ascribes the first foundation to Theodosius, not to Pulcheria; which could have happened because Pulcheria herself preferred to perform good works in the name of Theodosius rather than in her own, as Sozomen testifies: but the more ancient writers were not ignorant that she was the founder of that church, at least the chief founder, though perhaps she was aided by the wealth of Theodosius.

[177] the church which Justinian attributes to Verina The emperor Justinian in Novella 3, chap. 1, ascribes the construction of a certain church to Verina, wife of the emperor Leo. And that this is to be understood of the church at Chalcoprateia, Du Cange, already cited, suspects at p. 86. His reason is that the church at Chalcoprateia is said to have been near the great building of St. Sophia, near which the emperor says that also which Verina built was situated, and because both were dedicated to the most holy Mother of God. But I answer that I in no way doubt that the building of which Justinian speaks is another. For that church which Verina founded, together with two others likewise named by Justinian, was so near the church of St. Sophia that the divine offices were performed in it by the presbyters and clerics of St. Sophia, as Justinian there testifies.

[178] was other than that of Chalcoprateia: But those who speak of the church at Chalcoprateia do not suggest that it was near the church of St. Sophia — with the single exception of Theophanes, cited at num. 176, who moreover does not certainly say that it was so near the greater church, if we consider his Greek words. Εποίησεν, he says, ἐκκλησίαν, … πλησιάζουσαν τῇ μεγάλη ἐκκλησίᾳ. If we wish to express word for word, we shall render those words into Latin thus: He (Justin) made a church approaching to the great church. But these words need not be explained of nearness of place. For one church is also said to approach or draw near to another in likeness, elegance, magnitude. In that sense perhaps the words of Theophanes are to be understood, since I do not see that from any other passage it can be proved that the church of Chalcoprateia was near that of Sophia. Du Cange may be consulted, who rests upon this single passage, and Gyllius, book 2, chap. 21, who argues doubtfully, and on the authority of an unknown writer assigns to Chalcoprateia another place also, near the walls of Constantinople.

[179] But whatever be the case about the place, I do not doubt that the church of Chalcoprateia was magnificent which was magnificent and dedicated to the Mother of God. and had its own ministers, and therefore was also distinct from the building of the Mother of God which Verina founded. Nicephorus, book 15, chap. 14, has it thus to our purpose: This most renowned Pulcheria did many illustrious things throughout her life, and founded many public dwellings for guests and for the poor; she built also tombs for strangers and other buildings, tokens of her pious mind: among which is also the shrine of the martyr Laurence. She also raised from the very foundations three churches to the Mother of God, of which one is at Chalcoprateia, bearing the name of the Sacred Coffin. In this she laid up, as a treasure, the girdle of the Mother of God… In this church she ordained that on the fourth day of each week a vigil and a supplication with lamps and torches should be held, which she herself was wont to frequent on foot. The same author, book 14, chap. 2, says of this church and of another presently to follow: But both these shrines, ambitious alike in beauty and in size, were magnificently constructed.

[180] That church which Nicephorus testifies to have been magnificent along with that of Chalcoprateia The church of the ὁδηγοί, the guides of the way, is that very one which Theodore the Lector reckons in the third place. He calls it in Greek τὸν ὁδηγῶν, that is, of the guides of the way; but the Latin translator preferred to put "of the Hodegoi," keeping the Greek word. Codinus in the Origins, p. 41, somewhat alters the name and attempts to set out the cause of it, writing thus: The church of the holy Mother of God, surnamed the Guide of the Way (in Greek Τὴν ὑπεραγίαν Θεοτόκον τὴν ὁδηγὸν, which means, the most holy Mother of God, Guide of the Way), was built by Michael Methystes, whom Basil the Macedonian slew. But before it was an oratory of many blind men, who, washing themselves in the fountain of that place, had received their sight. Wherefore the church itself also was surnamed of the Guide of the Way. From these things Henri de Valois in his Annotations on Theodore the Lector, p. 161: Moreover this basilica was called that of the Hodegoi, because the blind, by the merits of the blessed Virgin, whose image had been laid up there, recovered their sight and no longer had need of a ὁδηγός, that is, of a guide. But Du Cange, in Christian Constantinople, book 4, p. 89, not without reason laughs at this account of the name; and he likewise rejects the opinion of those who believed the church was so called because it was dedicated to the guardian angels.

[181] Then he subjoins: Nay rather … I altogether judge this to be the reason of the name, [whence it seems to have drawn its name: an image of the Mother of God painted by St. Luke,] that, since an image of the Mother of God painted by St. Luke was venerated with the utmost religion and veneration by the Byzantines, the emperors and commanders would undertake no expedition against the enemy without first saluting it and beseeching that the holy Mother of God should become for them the companion, or rather the guide, of their way.

This opinion of his, which is beyond doubt far more probable than the rest, he attempts to confirm by many examples of commanders and emperors who implored the aid of the most holy Virgin in that church and referred their victories as received from the most blessed Virgin. Further, that an image of the most blessed Virgin, painted by St. Luke, was laid up in that church, various writers cited in Du Cange testify. Theodore the Lector, p. 551, does not indeed record where it was laid up, but testifies that it was sent to St. Pulcheria in these words: He reports also that Eudocia sent from the city of Jerusalem to Pulcheria an image of the Mother of the Lord, which Luke the apostle had painted.

[182] where it was placed by St. Pulcheria, who first founded that church. But Nicephorus, book 15, chap. 14, has it thus concerning the church built by St. Pulcheria and the image brought into it: The second church is that of the ὁδηγοί, the guides of the way, where she dedicated the image of the Mother of the Word sent from Antioch, which the divine apostle Luke painted with his own hands while she was still living and saw the panel itself, and so imparted (read "imparting") grace to that likeness of hers. This image was at first in the place which is called the Tribunal, where those miracles were wrought which are wrought even now. Further, she saw to it that in that church likewise a vigil and a supplication should be performed on the third day of each week; which is observed to this day. The same author, book 14, chap. 2, asserts that other relics also were brought into the same building by St. Pulcheria; but I do not judge them all equally certain, since the more ancient writers were silent about them. In which, he says, she saw to the keeping of that divine image of hers which the apostle Luke left painted on a panel, and the sacred distaff, and the swaddling bands of the Saviour Himself, as a treasure which Eudocia Augusta sent to her when she set out for Jerusalem. The said Du Cange rightly proves that it was a monastery of men in the thirteenth century, when George of Cyprus the patriarch, driven from his see, withdrew there. He shows also that this church was situated by the sea, and recalls many other things which may be seen there. This only I observe, that Codinus is not to be listened to when he attributes the construction of this church to the emperor Michael, who reigned in the ninth century: for Theodore the Lector, several centuries older, ascribes the first foundation to St. Pulcheria. But Michael could afterwards have restored the same church.

[183] The church of St. Laurence also built by her: The church of St. Laurence the martyr Theodore the Lector reckons last among those founded by Pulcheria. That the same was founded by her Theophanes, cited at num. 169, agrees, and Nicephorus at num. 177. That its forecourt was completed in the last year of her life Marcellinus suggests, writing thus at the year 453: Pulcheria Augusta, wife of the prince Marcian, completed the forecourt of blessed Laurence with inimitable workmanship, and made a blessed end of living. Codinus in the Origins, p. 48, adds Marcian as the founder of this church and of that of St. Isaiah together with Pulcheria. His words are: The churches of SS. Isaiah and Laurence were built by the emperor Marcian and his wife Pulcheria: in whose time the holy body of the prophet Isaiah was brought from Jerusalem. Cedrenus, p. 342, records the translation of St. Isaiah earlier in these words: In the XXXV year (of Theodosius the Younger, that is, in the year of Christ 442 or 443) the relics of the prophet Isaiah were brought from Paneas and laid in the church of St. Laurence. If these things are true, the church of St. Laurence was founded many years before the reign of Marcian. This altogether seems to have to be said, since the relics of St. Stephen also, which Eudocia Augusta is written to have brought from Jerusalem in the year 439, are said to have been laid in the church of St. Laurence, as we observed at num. 47. Wherefore I judge that that church was built by Pulcheria in the reign of Theodosius, and enlarged with new buildings in the time of Marcian.

[184] But as regards the translation of the relics of St. Isaiah, that too, if it was made while Pulcheria was living, will be more probably placed under Theodosius than under Marcian, other foundations attributed to her. although the building of that church could easily have been deferred and have taken place in the reign of Marcian. Of the church of St. Stephen also built by Pulcheria I have already discussed in §6. That the church of St. Menas the martyr was dedicated by Constantine the Great out of a temple of idols, the images only being cast out and a new name given, Codinus, so often cited already, writes at p. 37, subjoining this: But its entire structure, with vestibules and sacred vessels, Pulcheria and Marcian provided a hundred and sixty-nine years later. But this reckoning of years cannot be correct, since from the beginning of Constantine's reign to the death of Pulcheria and Marcian so many years are not found. Besides, a Gerocomium, that is, a house or hospice for the aged, was founded by Marcian and Pulcheria, says Codinus at p. 47. More about the pious foundations of St. Pulcheria set out by name I do not find; but what Sozomen, Theophanes and Nicephorus say in general terms abundantly suggests that many of her foundations were passed over by the writers.