culously revealed to the church of
Constantinople. The devotion of Antioch soon added, "who was crucified
for us!" and this grateful address, either to Christ alone, or to the
whole Trinity, may be justified by the rules of theology, and has been
gradually adopted by the Catholics of the East and West. But it had been
imagined by a Monophysite bishop; [77] the gift of an enemy was at first
rejected as a dire and dangerous blasphemy, and the rash innovation had
nearly cost the emperor Anastasius his throne and his life. [78] The
people of Constantinople was devoid of any rational principles of
freedom; but they held, as a lawful cause of rebellion, the color of
a livery in the races, or the color of a mystery in the schools. The
Trisagion, with and without this obnoxious addition, was chanted in the
cathedral by two adverse choirs, and when their lungs were exhausted,
they had recourse to the more solid arguments of sticks and stones; the
aggressors were punished by the emperor, and defended by the patriarch;
and the crown and mitre were staked on the event of this momentous
quarrel. The streets were instantly crowded with innumerable swarms
of men, women, and children; the legions of monks, in regular array,
marched, and shouted, and fought at their head, "Christians! this is the
day of martyrdom: let us not desert our spiritual father; anathema to
the Manichaean tyrant! he is unworthy to reign." Such was the Catholic
cry; and the galleys of Anastasius lay upon their oars before the
palace, till the patriarch had pardoned his penitent, and hushed the
waves of the troubled multitude. The triumph of Macedonius was checked
by a speedy exile; but the zeal of his flock was again exasperated by
the same question, "Whether one of the Trinity had been crucified?" On
this momentous occasion, the blue and green factions of Constantinople
suspended their discord, and the civil and military powers were
annihilated in their presence. The keys of the city, and the standards
of the guards, were deposited in the forum of Constantine, the principal
station and camp of the faithful. Day and night they were incessantly
busied either in singing hymns to the honor of their God, or in
pillaging and murdering the servants of their prince. The head of his
favorite monk, the friend, as they styled him, of the enemy of the Holy
Trinity, was borne aloft on a spear; and the firebrands, which had
been darted against heretical structures, diffused the