; the Nestorians and Eutychians were exposed.
on either side, to the double edge of persecution; and the four synods
of Nice, Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, were ratified by the
code of a Catholic lawgiver. [92] But while Justinian strove to maintain
the uniformity of faith and worship, his wife Theodora, whose vices
were not incompatible with devotion, had listened to the Monophysite
teachers; and the open or clandestine enemies of the church revived and
multiplied at the smile of their gracious patroness. The capital, the
palace, the nuptial bed, were torn by spiritual discord; yet so doubtful
was the sincerity of the royal consorts, that their seeming disagreement
was imputed by many to a secret and mischievous confederacy against the
religion and happiness of their people. [93] The famous dispute of the
Three Chapters, [94] which has filled more volumes than it deserves
lines, is deeply marked with this subtile and disingenuous spirit. It
was now three hundred years since the body of Origen [95] had been eaten
by the worms: his soul, of which he held the preexistence, was in the
hands of its Creator; but his writings were eagerly perused by the monks
of Palestine. In these writings, the piercing eye of Justinian descried
more than ten metaphysical errors; and the primitive doctor, in the
company of Pythagoras and Plato, was devoted by the clergy to the
eternity of hell-fire, which he had presumed to deny. Under the cover
of this precedent, a treacherous blow was aimed at the council of
Chalcedon. The fathers had listened without impatience to the praise
of Theodore of Mopsuestia; [96] and their justice or indulgence had
restored both Theodore of Cyrrhus, and Ibas of Edessa, to the communion
of the church. But the characters of these Oriental bishops were tainted
with the reproach of heresy; the first had been the master, the two
others were the friends, of Nestorius; their most suspicious passages
were accused under the title of the three chapters; and the condemnation
of their memory must involve the honor of a synod, whose name was
pronounced with sincere or affected reverence by the Catholic world. If
these bishops, whether innocent or guilty, were annihilated in the sleep
of death, they would not probably be awakened by the clamor which, after
the a hundred years, was raised over their grave. If they were already
in the fangs of the daemon, their torments could neither be aggravated
nor assuaged by human