CHAPTER XVIII

FELIX ISSUES A SENTENCE OF DEPOSITION AGAINST ACACIUS

JOHN, who had fled to Rome, was urgent on Felix, the successor of Simplicius in that see, respecting the proceedings of Peter, and recommends, according to Zacharias, that an instrument of deposition should be sent to Acacius from Felix, on the ground of his communion with Peter: which, however, as being uncanonical, Acacius did not admit, as the same Zacharias writes, on its presentation by certain members of the monastery of the Acoemets, as they are called. Such is the account given by Zacharias; but he appears to me to have been altogether ignorant of the real transactions, and to have reported merely an imperfect hearsay. I now proceed to give a precise account of the proceedings. On the presentation of libels to Felix by John against Acacius, on the score of irregular communion with Peter, and other uncanonical proceedings, the bishops Vitalis and Misenus are sent by Felix to the emperor Zeno, with a requisition that the authority of the synod at Chalcedon should be maintained, that Peter should be ejected as a heretic, and that Acacius should be sent to Felix to answer for himself to the charges brought against him by John, of whom we have made frequent mention.