EUTYCHIANS, ancient heretics, who denied the double nature in Christ, and were so denominated from Eutyches, the archimandrite, or abbot of a monastery at Constantinople, who began to propagate his opinion in the year 448. This man, however, did not seem quite steady and consistent in his sentiments, for he appeared to allow of two natures, even before the union; a consequence he apparently drew from the principles of the Platonic philosophy, which supposes a pre-existence of souls. Accordingly, he believed that the soul of Jesus Christ had been united to the divinity before the incarnation; but then he allowed no distinction of natures in Jesus Christ after his incarnation. This heresy was first condemned in a synod held at Constantinople by Flavian, in 448, the proceedings of which were approved by the council of Ephesus, called conventus latronum, in 449, and re-examined and condemned in the general council of Chalcedon in 451. The legates of Pope Leo, who assisted at the latter, maintained that it was not enough to define that there were two natures in Jesus Christ; but insisted strenuously, that, in order to remove all equivocations, they must add these terms, "without being changed, or confounded, or divided."
The heresy of the Eutychians, which made great progress throughout the East, at length became divided into several branches. Nicephorus makes mention of no fewer than twelve; some called Schematici, or Apparentes, as only attributing to Jesus Christ a phantom or appearance of flesh; others, Theodosians, from Theodosius, bishop of Alexandria; others, again, Jacobites, from one Jacobus of Syria, which last branch established itself principally in Armenia, where it still subsists. Others were named Acephali, headless, and Severians, from a monk called Severus, who seized on the see of Antioch in 513. These last were split into five subdivisions, namely, Agnoetae, who attributed some ignorance to Jesus Christ; the followers of Paul; Mlaani, or the black Angelites, so called from the place where they were assembled; and lastly, Adrites and Cononites.
EUTYCHIANS was also the name of another sect, half Arian half Eunomian, which arose at Constantinople in the fourth century.
It being then a matter of great controversy amongst the Eunomians at Constantinople, whether or not the Son of God knew the last day and hour of the world, particularly with regard to a passage in the gospel of St Matthew (chap. xxiv. ver. 36), or rather to one in St Mark (xiii. 32), where it is expressed that the Son did not know it, but the Father only; Eutychius made no scruple to maintain, even in writing, that the Son did not know it; and this opinion having displeased the leaders of the Eunomian party, he separated from them, and made a journey to Eunomius, then in exile, who fully acquiesced in Eutychius's doctrine, and admitted the latter to his communion. But Eunomius having died soon afterwards, the chief of the Eunomians at Constantinople refused to admit Eutychius; who, upon this, formed a sect of such as adhered to him, who were called Eutychians.
This Eutychius, with one Theophronius, were the occasion of all the changes made by the Eunomians in the administration of baptism; which, according to Nicephorus, consisted in only using one immersion, performed not in name of the Trinity, but in memory of the death of Jesus Christ. Nicephorus calls the chief of that sect, not Eutychius, but Eupychius, and his followers Eunomiaupychians.
Eutychius EUTYCHIUS, patriarch of Alexandria, lived about the ninth century; and wrote annals in the Arabic language, printed at Oxford in 1658, with a Latin version by Pococke. Selden had printed something of his before.
Evander EUXINUS PONTUS, Black Sea, lying between Europe and Asia, into which several of the largest rivers in the world flow; on the west the Danube, Dniester, and Dnieper, and on the east the Phasis, and on the south the Helys and Thermodon. A large peninsula stretches into the centre, and divides it into two great gulfs; the cape in the Crimea was called Criu-metopon (Karadje-Bouroun), and that in Asia, Carambis (Kerempi-Bouroun), being distant from each other 170 miles. According to Strabo, its circumference was 25,000 stadia, equal to 715 leagues, which is very nearly correct. The ancients believed that at one time it had no communication with the Mediterranean, but that the rivers which flow into this sea having opened for themselves a passage, the waters rushed into the Mediterranean by the Hellespont, and caused that sea to burst a passage through the Straits of Gibraltar. (Strab. i. 49.) In the time of Diodorus the inhabitants of the island Samothrace preserved the recollection of an inundation which had elevated the waters of the Mediterranean to such a height that their ancestors were obliged to take refuge on the summits of their highest mountains; and so late as the first century of the Christian era they had the custom of sacrificing on altars placed on the spot to which they believed the waters to have risen. There seems every reason to believe that the Black Sea, Caspian, and Aral, were once united, and perhaps found a vent to the North Sea by the valley through which the river Oby flows from Tobolsk. This immense lake was bounded to the north by the lofty mountains of Asia Minor and Armenia; and when by their weight the waters burst the barrier opposed to them on the side of the Bosphorus, it may easily be conceived with what a fearful shock they must have poured into the Mediterranean. See Storia Filosofica della Navigazione, del Commercio e delle Colonie degli antichi del Mare Nero, by Formaleoni, Venet. 1788; also Notes on French Strabo, Paris, 1805.