Syriac Acts of the Second Council of Ephesus (449)

The council of 449 met in at least two sittings. The first, which restored Eutyches and deposed Flavian of Constantinople, is known from its Greek minutes, which were read out and entered in the acts of Chalcedon in 451 (Acts and Canons of the Council of Chalcedon). The later proceedings are preserved in this Syriac translation. The scribe’s closing note says that he finished the book in the monastery of Mar Eusebius at Kafra d-Bartha and dates it by the era of Alexander; Perry converts the date to May 535 and places the monastery in the region of Apamea in Syria (p. 377 and notes).

The manuscript opens with the emperor’s letters summoning the council and gives the session dated 29 Mesori, which is 22 August: the report that the Roman envoys and Domnus of Antioch had stayed away, the hearings against Ibas of Edessa and others, and the votes of the bishops one by one. It ends with the edict of Theodosius II confirming the council. The copy was made by people who honoured the council and its president: its closing words call him “the holy and God-loving Dioscorus”. It is the council’s own record and gives its own account of its reasons. The complaints of those it condemned are in the letters of Leo and of Flavian and in the acts of Chalcedon.