led a most impious synod,
and lifted up his heel against the holy Council of Chalcedon. In agreement
with Severus, they sent their synodical letters together to Jerusalem.
These not being received kindled Anastasius to anger. So he banished Elias
from the holy city to Evila and put John in his see, and sent thither the
synodical acts of Severus and Timotheus."

The emperor Anastasius, whose dealings with the eastern patriarchs in his
empire are thus described, reigned for 27 years, from 491 to 518. It is to
him that, in the long contest which we are following, the four Popes,
Gelasius, Anastasius, Symmachus, and Hormisdas, have to direct their
letters, their exhortations, and their admonitions. During the whole of
this time, from 493, when the conflict between Odoacer and Theodorick is
terminated, they will have exchanged the local rule of the Arian Herule for
that of the Arian Ostrogoth. All write under what a pope of our own day has
called "hostile domination". They write from the Lateran Patriarcheium,
not, as St. Leo I., under the guardianship of one branch of the Theodosian
house at Rome to another branch at Constantinople, but to eastern emperors,
the first of their line who openly assume the right to dictate to Catholics
what they are to believe. Zeno, Basiliscus, and Anastasius found
patriarchs, who could sanction by their subscription much greater
violations of all Christian right than St. Athanasius had denounced in
Constantius, and St. Basil in Valens. They found, also, five Popes in
succession, living themselves "under hostile domination," who resisted
their tyranny, and saved both the doctrine and the discipline of the
Church. Without these Popes it is plain that the Council of Chalcedon would
have been given up in the East, and the Eutychean heresy made the doctrine
of the eastern Church.

We have seen the courageous act of the patriarch Euphemius in refusing
absolutely to crown Anastasius, whom he suspected to be an Eutychean, until
he had received a written declaration from him that he would maintain the
Council of Chalcedon. In the first three years of his reign, Anastasius
gained popularity by enacting wise laws, and by removing a severe and
detested tax, so that, in the words of the ancient biographer of St.
Theodore, "what was to become a field of destruction appeared a paradise of
pleasure".[56]

As soon as Gelasius became Pope, Euphemius sent him, according to custom,
synodal letters. He assured