After, therefore, Theodosius of Alexandria had been sent into exile, a certain Paul, one of the abbots of the Tabennesiote monks, is ordained bishop to the see of Alexandria—Pelagius, the Roman apocrisiarius, intervening—a man wholly orthodox, embracing the synod of Chalcedon. He was ordained by Mennas at Constantinople, in the presence of that same Pelagius, the deputy of Vigilius, and of the apocrisiarii of Ephraem of Antioch, and the apocrisiarii of Peter of Jerusalem. Now Severus of Antioch had already been condemned, and Anthimus of Constantinople, by Agapetus the Roman pope and by Mennas of Constantinople, on the basis of...
the petitions presented against them to the emperor Justinian by the heads of the monasteries, and by the prelates of First and Second Syria, and by the prelates of the monasteries of Jerusalem and of the Desert; in this way, then, the unity of the Churches was effected, in the tenth year of the reign of the glorious Justinian Augustus (see the notes). This Paul had been scorned at Constantinople, as is said, by certain of his own monks, and had come to Constantinople to plead his own cause before the emperor. Finding the chair vacant by divine prompting, he obtained through the deacon Pelagius the episcopate of Alexandria; and he received from the emperor authority over the appointment of dukes and tribunes, that he might remove heretics and ordain orthodox men in their stead; for through those men the (heretical) peoples were growing strong.
Going down to Alexandria, he had, by fear of himself and by his own diligence, brought the whole city and all the monasteries to embrace the synod of Chalcedon—had not, through the intervention of the devil, such an occasion arisen. While bishop Paul was planning to remove the master of soldiers also, a certain Psoius, deacon and steward (œconomus) of the Church, a friend of Elias, was writing all of Paul's designs to Elias by means of the swiftest courier-runners on foot, whom the Egyptians call Symmachi. Now it happened that Paul found his letters written in Egyptian, and read them; and fearing what had befallen Proterius, he became anxious about the matter, and began to compel Psoius to render the accounts of the Church; whom he handed over to a judge, and reported concerning him to the emperor.
At that time Rhodo was Augustal prefect at Alexandria, who, receiving the man (Psoius) to be kept until the emperor's order, by the counsel of a certain leading man of the city named Arsenius, and having received bribes—without the bishop's knowledge, as is reported—secretly by night killed him with great torture, with all his might. The sons and kinsmen of this man, appealing to the emperor, suggested to him by what violence their relative had paid the debt of death. Hearing this, the emperor summoned Liberius, made him Augustal prefect, and sent him to Alexandria to inquire into the matter. When Liberius had come to that city, he ordered Rhodo to come to him, and demanded of him how he had killed the deacon. But he answered that it had been done by the bishop's command:
he said that he held a delegation (commission) from the emperor, to the effect that whatever the bishop should command, he should by all means fulfil. But, the bishop Paul denying it and crying out that he knew nothing of it, that leading man of the city, Arsenius, found to be the author of that homicide, was punished with death. Furthermore, bishop Paul having been sent into exile to Gaza, Rhodo, together with the acts drawn up concerning him, was dispatched to Constantinople; and when his acts were read before the prince within the palace, he ordered him to be led off by an executioner and to be killed outside the royal city.
And after these things the emperor sent Pelagius, deacon and apocrisiarius of the first see of Rome, to Antioch with his sacred (imperial) letters, by which he commanded that, together with Ephraem, bishop of that same city, and Peter of Jerusalem, and Hypatius of Ephesus, they should come to Gaza, take the pallium from bishop Paul, and depose him. Pelagius, therefore, having set out for Antioch, and from thence for Jerusalem, came to Gaza with the aforesaid patriarchs and a number of bishops. And, taking the pallium from Paul, they deposed him, and ordained in his place Zoilus, whom afterwards at Constantinople the emperor deposed and ordained Apollinaris, who is now the prelate of that same Church of Alexandria.
But when Pelagius was returning to Constantinople, certain monks from Jerusalem—through whose territory Pelagius had passed on his way into Gaza—came with him to the court, carrying chapters (extracts) culled from the books of Origen, wishing to plead before the emperor that Origen should be condemned together with those chapters. Pelagius, therefore, being a rival of Theodore, bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, and wishing to harm him because he was a defender of Origen, together with Mennas, archbishop of Constantinople, urgently demanded of the prince that what those monks were petitioning be done—namely, that Origen be condemned, and those very chapters which taught such things. The emperor most readily assented, rejoicing to pass judgment on such causes:
by his command there was dictated against Origen and those chapters that condemnation of anathema, which the bishops found at Constantinople subscribed, together with Mennas the archbishop. Then it was directed to Vigilius, the Roman bishop, to Zoilus of Alexandria, to Ephraem of Antioch, and to Peter of Jerusalem; and when they had received it and subscribed it, Origen was condemned dead, who while living had once before been condemned. "The prelates of the monasteries."] See the petitions of all in the Council of Constantinople under Mennas. "In the tenth year of the reign."] Peace was made, all the patriarchs conspiring (agreeing together) into the one faith of the Council of Chalcedon.
But how did this happen in the tenth year of Justinian, when one of the patriarchs, Paul, was ordained in the presence of Pelagius, the deputy of Vigilius, and yet Vigilius himself is not said to have been ordained except in the following year, on the 22nd of November? Or did Vigilius, departing from Constantinople and sure of obtaining the apostolic see, leave Pelagius there as his own deputy—as he had been Agapetus's—to be his apocrisiarius? For Agapetus had ordered this man to discharge the same office there; indeed in the year 535 he had sent him to Constantinople with Theophanes, another deacon of the apostolic see, as is clear from the Council of Constantinople under Mennas, where they are called archdeacons?
Or was Vigilius himself ordained not in the following year but in this very one, since Silverius on the 17th of May had been substituted in the place of Agapetus, who had died on the 22nd of April? "He had been scorned."] That is, accused, as being less fit for governing—not on account of simplicity, as has seemed to some; but partly because of his defence of the synod and his attack on Origen, against the Tabennesiotes, who were inclined toward Dioscorus and Origen, partly because of his domineering manner of governing and his excessive desire for the highest chair, whence, being a despiser of monks, he was in turn despised by the monks.
"By divine prompting."] Granted indeed that it was by divine prompting that he was first made bishop, on account of the merit of his faith; yet when he had at some point been deposed on account of the guilt of homicide, having given money to Justinian—and that a great sum—he wished to buy back his restoration, as Procopius relates in the Secret History, chapter 27. And Paul would on that account have had to be restored, had not Vigilius the pontiff, then at Constantinople, stood in the way. "The peoples were growing strong."] A doubtful reading; if not false, a more probable sense would emerge if it were read, "the heretics were growing strong." "Pelagius, therefore."] Victor relates that a council was held, "which, while celebrating the deposition of Dioscorus, his heretical predecessor, was deposed by a Palestinian council, and in his place Zoilus was ordained."
In what year this happened cannot so easily be determined, both because the writers contend among themselves, and each one speaks obscurely; and although they should state their opinion plainly, they would nevertheless deserve no great credence, since they bring forward many false things in this matter. Of the writers, some refer it to the year 537, like Baronius; others to 543, like Panvinius; others to the year 539 or 540, like Victor of Tunnuna (if indeed anything definite can be inferred from his words, which are no little tangled), seeing that in the same year he relates that Silverius succeeded Agapetus and that Paul took possession of the Church of Alexandria; and this Paul, after spending not two full years in the see, was deposed and had Zoilus as his successor.
Since, therefore, Silverius was ordained in the year 536, on the 17th of May or the 20th of June, it must be admitted, if we listen to Victor, that Paul took possession of the Church of Alexandria either toward the end of the year 536 or at the beginning of the following year, before the 17th of May, and thus was deposed either in the year 539 or at the beginning of the following year. But on that question I treat more at length in the dissertation. "Arsenius."] Procopius relates that he was a Palestinian by race, a Samaritan by sect.
This man was first made a senator by the favour of Theodora; then, on account of the whole Samaritan rebellion, he was expelled from the palace; soon he fell into the hatred of the Empress, because, when he had come to Alexandria with Paul, the Catholic bishop of the Church of Alexandria, after the ejection of Theodosius, whom the Empress had set over it, he had won for him the favour of the people; finally, when he was convicted of the murdered deacon, by the order of Theodora he was driven to the cross (crucified) by the Augustal prefect Liberius, his goods being confiscated, which he had amassed in great quantity by evil arts: he is said to have feigned Christianity twice falsely. "The emperor deposed him."] Concerning the deposition of Zoilus, Victor agrees with Liberatus, whether at "after the consulship of Basilius, the eleventh":
"Apollinaris is substituted as bishop of the Church of Alexandria for Zoilus, who refused to condemn the aforesaid three chapters"—or when he writes that "Apollinaris was promoted while Zoilus was still living." Evagrius dissents: "After the death of Zoilus, Apollinaris took possession of the see of Alexandria." Vigilius, in the sentence of condemnation against Theodore of Cappadocia, when he objects that by him the name of Zoilus had been erased from the sacred diptychs without authority, and another—that of the perverter and adulterer Apollinaris—written in, not only favours Liberatus (since he is called an adulterer who, while the spouse is living, receives the Church), but also shows that Zoilus was deposed in the year 551, in the month of July; for Vigilius passed the sentence against Theodore in that very year, on the 19th before the Kalends of September.
"Who is now the prelate."] From this no one could gather at what time Liberatus wrote; for Apollinaris lived in the episcopate many years; but one may conclude only that he wrote after the year 551, in which Apollinaris is said to have succeeded Zoilus. "Being a rival."] For each of them was lying in wait for the mind of the emperor and was hunting for favour; each was of great authority at court—Pelagius on account of the apostolic see, whose affairs he managed; Theodore in the name of his own autocephalous Church; each excelled in learning; each was industrious in the conduct of affairs; each fed, by books inscribed with the imperial name, the foolish vanity of Justinian, who on the throne sought a reputation for doctrine;
each served the counsels of the Empress; but Theodore was the more daring, Pelagius the more retentive of fairness. "To Theodore, bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia."] Concerning him, in the Life of St. Sabas, number 105, Cyril the monk says: "After the Church had recently been freed from heresies, and had taken breath after those long tumults and disturbances, and there was in it quiet and tranquillity, the Evil One, again casting his envious eye upon it, stirs up against it certain followers of Nonnus—Domitian, I mean, and Theodore—who, since they already long ago held the things that Origen held, when they had also taken to themselves the help of the time, and the one of them was made prelate of the Galatians, but Theodore of Caesarea in Cappadocia, displayed their great power."
He was made bishop, I think, toward the end of the year 536; for he had not been made (bishop) at the time when Mennas was holding the council at Constantinople, since in that very council he is read as having subscribed: "Stephen, deacon and legate of the most holy bishop Sotericus of Caesarea, metropolitan of the first province of the Cappadocians." Now Mennas held the council in the year 536, in the month of May, on the first day; nor did he obtain the Church of Caesarea even after a day (i.e., immediately), as is gathered from the letters of Vigilius. Moreover, before he took possession of the episcopate, he remained some years at court, to which, I think, he came when, after the death of Sabas, a tumult having broken out in Syria, he sought Constantinople, in order to occupy the emperor's mind. "The condemnation was dictated against Origen."
At what time it was dictated, the opinion of the writers is not one. Baronius refers it to the year 537; others differ by nearly a decade: the question depends on the time at which Zoilus was ordained, concerning which see the dissertation rejected to the end. "He had been condemned before."] It is evident from the beginning of the following chapter that this was badly placed (i.e., this remark is misapplied), namely lest the condemnation of Origen after death should bring prejudice against the men of the Three Chapters, condemned after death—which the patrons of the Chapters said was a sacrilege; but Liberatus is speaking of the Alexandrian council which Demetrius convened against Origen around the year 231, of which no one, so far as I know, makes mention before Jerome;
and he himself (Jerome) too handed down diverse and conflicting things, according as at different times he was differently disposed in mind: for in the book On Ecclesiastical Writers, which he published before his quarrel with Rufinus, he says that Demetrius raged with great madness against Origen; after the quarrel, that Demetrius was torn (slandered) by Origen. Before the quarrel he relates that Origen was condemned not on account of the "novelty" of his doctrines, or for heresy—which now the rabid dogs pretend against him—but because they could not bear the glory of his eloquence and learning, and when he spoke all were thought to be mute. After the quarrel, he brings in the same Origen as writing a book of penitence to pope Fabian, because he had committed to writing those things which were rightly condemned.
"Certain monks from Jerusalem."] Mention of these is made in the letter of Justinian to Mennas; Evagrius (book IV, chapter 37) names four by name: Eulogius, Conon, Cyriacus, and Pancratius. See the dissertation, column 1051. "Then it was directed."] Liberatus seems to hint that Justinian wrote to Mennas before he wrote to Vigilius and the other patriarchs; indeed, that a council was convened by Mennas at Constantinople, and in it the condemnation of Origen was subscribed by the bishops, before the letters were given to the rest of the prelates; yet Justinian himself protests this in his letter to Mennas: "These same things, moreover, we send not only to your holiness, but also to the most holy and most blessed pope of elder Rome and patriarch Vigilius, and to all the rest," etc.
"To Ephraem of Antioch and Peter of Jerusalem."] These things do not cohere with what Theophanes writes; for he joins the first year of Peter with the nineteenth of Justinian, which falls in the year of Christ 545, and with the fourth of Zoilus—which the history of the whole matter plainly shows to be far from the truth; although Theophanes, when he wrote these things, did not depart far from the truth in joining the years of Justinian and Zoilus; for he who was in the nineteenth (year) of Justinian was about in the fourth of Zoilus.