Читать книгу The Dark Ages, 476-918 онлайн

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When the Ostrogoths migrated to Italy, the empire acquired a new set of neighbours on its northern frontier, the nomad Ugrian horde of the Bulgarians on the lower Danube, and the Teutonic tribes of the Gepidae, Heruli, and Lombards on the middle Danube and the Theiss and Save. Contrary to what might have been expected, none of these races pushed past the barrier of Roman forts along the river to occupy Moesia. They vexed the empire with nothing worse than occasional raids, and did not come to settle within its limits.

Zeno’s ecclesiastical policy demands a word of notice. He was himself orthodox, but not fanatical: the Church being at the moment grievously divided by the Monophysite schism, to which the Churches of Egypt and Palestine had attached themselves, he thought it would be possible and expedient to lure the heretics back within the fold by slightly modifying the Catholic statement of doctrine. In 482, though he was in the midst of his struggle with Theodoric the Amal, he found time to draft his ‘Henoticon,’ or Edict of Comprehension. The Monophysites held that there was but one nature in our Lord, as opposed to the orthodox view, that both the human and the divine element were fully present in His person. |Zeno’s Henoticon.| Zeno put into his ‘Henoticon’ a distinct statement that Christ was both God and man, but did not insert the words ‘two natures,’ which formed the orthodox shibboleth. But his well-meant scheme fell utterly flat. The heretics were not satisfied, and refused to conform, while the Catholics held that it was a weak concession to heterodoxy, and condemned Zeno for playing with schism. The patriarch, Acacius, who had assisted him to draft the ‘Henoticon,’ was excommunicated by the Bishop of Rome, and the churches of Italy and Constantinople were out of communion for more than thirty years, owing to an edict that had been intended to unite and not to divide.