At this time Macedonius, bishop of Constantinople, is said to have been expelled by the emperor Anastasius, as having falsified the Gospels, and especially that saying of the Apostle: «Because he appeared in the flesh, he was justified in the spirit.» For he is said to have altered it where it has «who» (id est), that is, by changing the Greek monosyllable, the letter o being changed into [theta], and to have made it so that it read «God appeared through the flesh.» So, blamed as though a Nestorian, he is expelled through Severus the monk. Now this Severus, when he first sat in a monastery, would not receive the edict of Zeno, nor Peter Mongus:
此時，君士坦丁堡的主教馬其頓尼烏斯據說被皇帝阿那斯塔修斯所逐，因他被指竄改了福音書，尤其是使徒那句話：「祂在肉身顯現，在靈裡得稱為義。」因為據說他在原作「祂」(id est)之處加以更改，即把那希臘文單音節詞的字母 o 改成 θ，使之變成「神藉肉身顯現」。於是他被指為像是聶斯多留派而被逐，藉著修士塞維魯之手。如今這塞維魯，當他起初在一座修道院中時，既不肯接受芝諾的諭旨，也不肯接納貓兒伯多祿：
then, residing in the monastery of the abbot Romanus and of Mamas, who presided after him, he was thence sent to remain at Constantinople, and becomes an apocrisiarius among those who belonged to Peter Mongus; and when it was objected to him, «How did you formerly anathematize Peter?» he would say, «Because I anathematized Peter of Apamea.» This Severus at Constantinople disparaged the synod, and affirmed that, once it was anathematized, all would commune; so that on this account he wrote both to Flavian himself, as was indicated in his letters, and to Itaronas the lector, and to Eleusinius and Eutychius the bishops, and to Oecumenius the scholastic of Isauria.
There is moreover circulated his exposition, which was delivered by him at his enthronement, in which he both accepts the unitive edict of Zeno, and anathematizes the Council of Chalcedon, and confesses that he communes with the Alexandrian and the Constantinopolitan (now there was at that time at Constantinople Timothy, but at Alexandria John Machiota). And yet, being such a man, he had the power to condemn Macedonius, and to expel Flavian from the Antiochene see. But he himself did not possess his episcopate for more than five years: indeed he was harassed in his episcopate, as one who anathematized the synod yet named the bishops of the synod; whose expulsion is known to have come about thus.
When the emperor Anastasius had died and Justin had been made emperor, Severus is accused by Vitalian, the master of soldiers, a religious and orthodox man, of despising the emperor's command and of not receiving the synod. The emperor Justin sent an officer (magistrianus) to bring Severus to Constantinople and to render account of his treatises which he had composed against the synod. For already by that same pious emperor Julian of Halicarnassus, the bishop, had been driven from his see on behalf of that same holy synod, because he would not receive it. Knowing this, and foreseeing what threatened him, Severus secretly went down by night to Seleucia, and, boarding a ship, fled to Alexandria, to which city Julian also had fled:
and in his place Paul, an orthodox man receiving the Council of Chalcedon, was ordained archbishop of Antioch. At that time, after Dioscorus the younger had died at Alexandria, Timothy had received the episcopate of that Church, by whom Severus and Julian, most graciously received, sat at Labron. Under this Timothy, a question about the corruptible and the incorruptible was stirred up in that same Church in this way. A certain monk asked Severus in what manner one ought to speak of the body of our Lord Jesus Christ — corruptible or incorruptible. He answered him that the holy Fathers had called it corruptible.
Certain of the Alexandrians, hearing this, when they had asked Julian, who was sitting in another place, what he too would say about the same question, he said that the holy Fathers said the contrary. Each of these therefore, wishing to establish his own answer, wrote books against one another, which, coming into the multitude of the city, divided that Church, and caused some indeed to be called Corrupticolae (worshippers of corruption), and others, namely the asserters of incorruptibility, Phantasiastae; but Timothy rather followed the opinion of Severus. To him, when his deacon Themistius said:
«If the body of Christ is corruptible, we must say that he was also ignorant of certain things, as in the case of Lazarus,» Timothy denied that this should be said; from communion with him Themistius, breaking away, made a schism; and from him those in Egypt were called Themistiani. [«At this time Macedonius.»] Namely in the year 511, which is the 21st of the emperor Anastasius, in which the ancient writers agree; since therefore he is said to have sat six years, it is necessary to admit that he was ordained in the year 504, at the end or beginning of 505. [«As though he had falsified the Gospels.»] The passage of the Apostle is 1 Tim. III, 16, which in Greek reads thus; but in Latin:
«And manifestly great is the mystery of godliness, which was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit, appeared to angels, preached among the Gentiles, believed on in the world, taken up in glory.» The Latin translator used a Greek codex in which there was read not [theta] but o; it was necessary therefore, if any faith is to be given to Liberatus, that in the time of Macedonius it was read «o,» which little word he himself changed into «[theta].» But the credit of Liberatus may justly be suspected, since among the far more ancient Fathers — Chrysostom, Theodoret, and other commentators on Paul — it is written «[theta],» and no other writer makes mention of this little tale; indeed other causes of the deposition are brought forward by all. [«Through Severus the monk.»] No plague was more harmful than this man.
He had a disposition monstrous by nature, out of savagery and craft: his inborn savagery he first softened with the arts of love; then, as it returned to its native bent, he applied it to the business of the forum, and even pleaded cases; afterward, out of weariness of a laborious life, he hid himself away in the solitude of a monastery, where he wished to be seen, through leisure, to pursue true piety; for he preached the Council of Chalcedon and condemned the Henoticon, but in truth he was plotting the disturbances with which he would one day shake the whole Church of the East. Returning therefore from the monastery to Alexandria, he is at once, as he was skilled in affairs, sent to Constantinople to plead the cases of the Egyptian diocese at court; soon he explores by what way he might accomplish the crime he had devised;
and no engine seemed to him more powerful than a woman, the wife of the emperor, a mistress and one fervently addicted to heresy: to her he impiously enslaves himself, and tears at the great synod, which he had formerly praised, and which he formerly called the teacher of the faith, when the occasion bade — but now he calls it a conspiracy of factious men, because so the Augusta boasted: by these arts, when he saw the court deceived, he dared to aspire to a patriarchal see; but, his hopes of obtaining the Constantinopolitan see being dashed, he turned his mind to the Antiochene, and, Flavian being expelled, invaded it. [«And Eleusinius.»] This fragment of a letter of Severus to Eleusinius the bishop is read in the Lateran Council under Martin I, session 5:
«We anathematize those who have defined one Christ in two natures, and who profess the proper operations of each of the natures.» [«To Oecumenius.»] He wrote many letters to the same man; from the first of these, in the council just mentioned, these things are cited: «The propriety in the operations, of which Leo, prelate of the city of Rome, said: ‹Each form works in communion with the other that which is proper to it,› will by no means be named ‹propriety› among the orthodox.» And afterward: «We anathematize those who after the union speak of two natures, that is, of the operations of two natures, or of two proprieties.» Observe this form of interpreting, «that is» (hoc est): for it shows what was the true opinion of the Monothelites concerning the two wills;
but these things we have treated more fully elsewhere, nor do the narrow limits of the place in which we are permit a disquisition. [«There is moreover circulated his exposition.»] The Fathers of the synod held in the royal city in the year 518, when they reported to John of Constantinople concerning the petitions of the monks against Severus, adduced the words by which Severus pronounced anathema upon the holy synod: «Those things which were formed and established by the synod gathered at that time in Chalcedon, and those who fight on its behalf, we anathematize.» [«But he would name the bishops.»] That is, he would invoke their names in the sacred diptychs. [«Justin being made emperor.»] Justin's religion and his exceptional zeal for the catholic faith are extolled in many places of the ancients, but especially in the acts of the synod just praised.
[«Julian of Halicarnassus.»] He wrote a discourse against the Manichaeans, from which were excerpted those passages which were brought forward in the Lateran synod under Martin I, session 5. [«Timothy of that Church, etc.»] He succeeded Dioscorus the younger in the year 519, the latter being already afflicted; and he seems to me to be the very man who in the acts of Saint Arethas is called Asterius, and to whom the emperor Justin is said to have written, after the city of Nagran had been stormed by the leader of the Homerites and a persecution stirred up against the Christians, for in that very season he held the episcopate. But why I should conjecture that he was two-named, the custom of the Alexandrians does so, which prevailed after the times of Cyril: for they were wont to distinguish bishops of the same name by surnames;
Thus they called one John 'Melas,' another 'Machiotas,' and a third 'Eleemon'; thus they distinguished Dioscorus the elder and the younger, and Timothy 'Aelurus' (the Cat) and 'Salophaciolus'; and to distinguish a third from these, I do not doubt at all that they named him 'Asterius':
And if this be asserted, the solution to a question will become plainly clear—a question which a certain recent commentator raised against both Baronius and Riccioli concerning Asterius of Alexandria. Although neither of those two spoke with exact regard to the truth on this matter, there was nevertheless no reason why they should be flogged by a commentator quite unskilled in the subject, as though they had thrust a man into the number of the prelates of Alexandria against manifest reason—since both rely upon the authority of an ancient writer, and Riccioli's error of 'Justinian' for 'Justin' may be ascribed to the carelessness of the typesetters. But that fault of the commentator, like very many others, must be pardoned on account of his censorious disposition. 'To Labro.'] Elsewhere 'to Labronum,' perhaps 'to Labronium.' Leontius, Act 5: the Greeks say 'i,' which means 'voracious';
whence it may seem—and this is to be understood—as though they dwelt at the ninth, whirlpool-like mouth of the Nile, not in some part of the city of Alexandria. 'Concerning the corruptible and incorruptible.'] This question pertained neither to mortality or immortality, nor to dissolution into the elements or its contrary permanence; for it was always admitted, even among the Eutychians themselves, that Christ's body had truly died in the tomb, and yet had not been corrupted. The matter therefore brought into controversy was whether Christ's body, just like ours, suffered the impairments on account of whose repair it would grow hungry, and have need of food, and grow weary, and require rest to restore its strength;
or whether He only appeared to suffer this in semblance, and did so only in the way He did after the resurrection. The occasion of the controversy, or rather of the dissension, was that—since it was done with ill-will toward the Eutychians, as though they were asserting that Christ's body was not like ours—some denied that incorruptibility could stand together with consubstantiality, while others affirmed it. Hence the former were called 'Corrupticolae' (worshippers of corruption), the latter 'Phantasiastae'; not because the Phantasiasts denied that Christ's body was real, as the Manichaeans did, but because they said that natural affections of this kind existed in Christ not in reality, but in semblance and appearance.
'Themistius the deacon.'] Mention of him is made in the Lateran Council under Martin I, and in the sixth general synod, in both of which places excerpts from his books are produced in favor of one will and one operation; and from those things produced he is shown to be an enemy of the party of Theodosius, who was deposed from the see of Alexandria—for his second discourse too was presented to Theodora by the heresiarch of the Theodosians, and he wrote against Colluthus the defender of Theodosius. 'Themistians.'] They were also called 'Agnoetae,' and reckoned among the heretics, not because they denied that the last day was known to Christ as man—for very many of the Fathers denied this—but because they thought it followed from the consubstantiality of Christ with us, in which they were mistaken: