the again joyously, and do not doubt that you will do even
more in religion than I desire. But mindful of my office, I dwell the more
on this matter, because out of regard alike for your empire and your
salvation I ardently wish that you should abide in that cause on which
alone depends the stability of present government and the gaining future
glory. I beg above all things that you should deliver the Church of
Alexandria from the heretical intruder, and restore it to the Catholic and
legitimate bishop, and also restore the several ejected bishops to their
sees, that as you have delivered your commonwealth from the domination of a
tyrant, so you may save the Church of God everywhere from the robbery and
contamination of heretics. Do not allow that to prevail which the iniquity
of the times and a spirit as rebellious against God as against your empire
has stirred up, but rather what so many great pontiffs, and with them the
consent of the universal Church, has decreed. Give full legal vigour to the
decrees of the Council of Chalcedon, or those which my predecessor Leo, of
blessed memory, has with apostolic learning laid down. That is, as you have
found it, the Catholic faith, which has put down the mighty from their
seat, and exalted the humble."[31]

To appreciate this letter, it must be borne in mind that it was written by
Pope Simplicius a year after the western empire was extinguished; that the
writer had seen nine western emperors deposed, and most of them murdered,
in twenty-one years; that it was addressed to the eastern and now only
Roman emperor; and that the writer was living under the absolute rule of
the _condottiere_ chief who had succeeded Ricimer, and is called by Pope
Gelasius a few years afterwards "Odoacer, barbarian and heretic".[32]

The whole East was disturbed at this time by the condition of the great
patriarchal sees of Alexandria and Antioch. The Eutychean party was
perpetually trying for the mastery. At Alexandria, Proterius, who succeeded
Dioscorus when he was deposed at the Council of Chalcedon, had been
murdered in 458. The utmost efforts of Pope Leo and the emperor Leo were
needed to maintain his legitimate successor Timotheus Solofaciolus, against
whom a rival of the same name, Timotheus Ailouros, had been set up by the
Eutychean party, which was far the most numerous. It was on the death of
this patriarch, Timotheus Solofaciolus, in 482, that the clergy and many
bishops had chosen John Tala