s really drawn up by Vigilius, who had persisted during almost
six years, as the emperor admitted, in condemning the Three Chapters, it
must be explained by the Pope finding his especial difficulty in the manner
of terminating the matter, so that the western bishops should be entirely
satisfied that the decrees of the Council of Chalcedon remained inviolate;
that he purposed only to condemn errors, but spare persons; that he wished
to set his refusal against the pressure of the changeable emperor and the
blind submission of the Grecian bishops, without surrendering any point of
faith. Many irregularities appeared in what preceded the council and took
place in it. Justinian's conduct was dishonouring to the Church, and he
used force to get the decrees of the Council accepted. At last Vigilius,
who seems with other bishops to have been banished, gave way to the
pressure, and issued a decided condemnation of the Three Chapters, in a
writing to Eutychius of 8th December, 553; and in a Constitution dated 23rd
February, 554, he made no mention of the council, but gave his own decision
in accordance with it, and independent of it, as he had before intended.
Only by degrees the council held by Eutychius obtained the name of the
Fifth General Council.

In August, 554, the Pope was again on good terms with the emperor, who
issued at his request the Pragmatic Sanction for Italy. Then Vigilius set
out to return to Rome, but died on his way at Syracuse in the beginning of
555. He had spent seven years in the Greek capital, in a position more
difficult than had ever before occurred; ignorant himself of the language;
struggling to his utmost to meet the dangers which assaulted the Church
from every side. Now one and now another seemed to threaten the greater
evil. He never wavered in the question of faith itself, but often as to
what it was opportune to do: as whether it was advisable or necessary to
condemn persons and writings which the Council of Chalcedon had spared:
whether to issue a judgment which would be looked upon by the Monophysites
as a triumph of their cause: which for the same reason would be utterly
detested by most westerns, as a supposed surrender of the Council of
Chalcedon; which, instead of closing the old divisions, might create new.
Subsequent times showed the correctness of his solicitude.[146]

The patriarch Eutychius who presided at this council by the emperor's
order, without the Pope, was held in great consi