Sympsis Chronica Annorum VIII

SYNOPSIS OF THE CHRONICLE OF THE EIGHT YEARS Setting forth and illustrating the principal events which occurred in the matter of the Three Chapters. In the year of Christ 546. The emperor Justinian, at the urging of Theodore, bishop of Caesarea, publishes a book against the Three Chapters, and compels Mennas of Constantinople and the other patriarchs together with their bishops to subscribe to their condemnation. He also summons Vigilius from Rome for the same cause. In the year of Christ 547. Vigilius enters the imperial city on the eighth day before the Kalends of February, and suspends Mennas and the other condemnors of the Chapters from communion. Later, at the request of the Augusta Theodora, he receives Mennas back into communion on the day of June. Justinian vainly applies force to extort a condemnation from Vigilius. In the year of Christ 548. Vigilius, bent on condemning the Chapters out of a desire for peace, holds a council of bishops, at which Facundus was present, and orders each one to deliver his own opinion in writing. He sends the responses of the bishops, which had been brought to him, into the palace. And he himself delivers a *judicatum* to Mennas on Holy Saturday, in which he condemned Theodore of Mopsuestia together with his teachings, and the letter of Ibas, and the writings of Theodoret, saving the reverence due to the Council of Chalcedon, while the Africans, Illyrians, Dalmatians, and others persisted in the defense of the Three Chapters.

In the year of Christ 549. Rusticus and Sebastianus, deacons, defect from Vigilius at the beginning of the year, and, attacking the Judicatum, defame Vigilius throughout the provinces as a prevaricator of the Synod of Chalcedon. Concerning this matter, Anastasius, sent by Aurelianus of Arles, brought letters to Vigilius on the day before the Ides of July. In the year of Christ 550. Vigilius writes back to Valentinianus, bishop of Scythia, on the fifteenth day before the Kalends of April, and to Aurelianus of Arles on the Kalends of May, teaching that in his Judicatum nothing had been admitted against the Synod of Chalcedon. He abrogates the honor and ministry of their rank from Rusticus and Sebastianus, the authors of the false rumor. Moreover, with Justinian pressing that he should condemn the Chapters absolutely and without mention of the Synod, he persuades that the matter be referred to a general council, and, having in the meantime received back, together with the hands of other bishops, the Judicatum which he had previously made, he thereafter forbids, with the prince announcing it, every question concerning the Chapters until the council.

In the year of Christ 551. Justinian, at the instigation of Theodore, sets forth edicts of condemnation of the Chapters against the interdict. Vigilius protests, and pronounces excommunication against those who have given assent. For this reason, with Justinian inflamed with anger, he takes refuge in the Basilica of Saint Peter in the month of August of Hormisdas: whence the prefect, attempting to drag him away by force, is repelled by the tumult of the people. Having finally received a pledge through the emperor’s envoys, he returns to the House of Placidia. But again assailed by many injuries and beset by plots, by night, again around the Nativity of Christ, he goes to Chalcedon, to Saint Euphemia. In the year of Christ 552. Senators sent by Justinian to recall Vigilius return on the day before the Kalends of February, their mission unaccomplished. Also sent separately, once and then again, Peter the Referendary, first on the day before the Kalends with a paper filled with insults against Vigilius, then on the day before the Nones to urge his return. On the Nones of February, Vigilius writes an encyclical about his calamities, and brings to light the sentence of deposition against Theodore which he had drawn up six months before. After this, with the edicts withdrawn by Justinian, and with libelli of faith and penance offered by Menas, Theodore, and others, having left Chalcedon, he returns to Constantinople.

In the year of Christ 553. Other professions were demanded of Vigilius on the day of Theophania by the patriarchs, Eutychius, who had succeeded the deceased Mennas, Apolinarius, and Domnus. The Fifth General Synod was begun on the fourth Nones of May. Vigilius, refusing to attend it, in order to set forth his opinion in writing, sent a constitution on the day before the Ides of May to Justinian, in which he resumes the defense of the Three Chapters and forbids any innovation concerning those things which had been judged by the Synod of Chalcedon. The Fifth Synod, however, condemns the Three Chapters. Vigilius, because he shrank from approving the condemnation, was driven into exile. Then, after some years, recalled through the efforts of the commander Narses, as he was returning to the City, he died of disease in Sicily, after the consulship of Basilius, as Victor notes in his Chronicle, in the 17th year, that is, in the year of Christ 558.