CONSTANTINOPLE AND THE EASTERN EMPIREespecially the deaconess Olympias, the jewels and display of rich ladies were
also a frequent target of his preaching. The real forces at work behind his con-
demnation, which was judged illegal in the west by a synod called by Innocent
I, were several and varied, but personalities and personal feelings certainly
played a large part.
Similar passions aroused in a religious context were demonstrated at Alex-
andria, a stronghold of paganism and the seat of the major philosophical
school after Athens.^25 Here the policies of Theodosius I had acted as an incite-
ment to the burning of the great temple known as the Serapeum (after the
Egyptian god Serapis) by monks in 391;^26 now the aggressive patriarch Cyril
raised the emotional tension to such a pitch that Christians were attacked by
Alexandrian Jews when they gathered together on hearing that the church was
on fi re. In 415 Christians in turn lynched the female Neoplatonist philosopher
Hypatia, Synesius’ teacher:
they dragged her from her carriage, took her to the church called Cae-
sareum, where they completely stripped her, and then murdered her with
tiles. After tearing her body in pieces, they took her mangled limbs to a
place called Cinaron, and there burnt them. This affair brought no small
opprobrium, not only upon Cyril [bishop of Alexandria], but also upon
the whole Alexandrian church. And surely nothing can be further from
the spirit of Christians than massacres, fi ghts, and such-like things.
(Socrates, HE VII.15, trans. from Stevenson, Creeds)It is certainly true that the sources, especially Christian sources, often make
claims about violence between pagans and Christians that have to be treated
with scepticism, but Alexandria was undoubtedly prone to such outbursts
of violence, and trouble stirred up by excitable religious leaders or monks
became common as the urban population in many cities of the east steadily
grew during the fi fth and sixth centuries (Chapter 7).^27
Fifth-century councilsThe two great church councils of Ephesus and Chalcedon also have to be
seen against this context; they aroused passions equal to those surrounding
any political issue in the modern world, and were just as much infl uenced by
personal, social and local rivalries. Unlike the Second Council of Ephesus in
449, both rank among seven recognized ‘ecumenical’ councils, starting with
the Council of Nicaea in 325 and ending with the Second Council of Nicaea
in 787. However, many other councils and synods were held as well, either
local and limited in character, or, just as frequently, recognized as binding
only by part of the church. As we have seen, attendance at the Council of
Constantinople (381) was eastern; the pope was not present, but the council
was recognized as ecumenical by Chalcedon. As the church became more and
more infl uential, and more embedded in general society, division between