The first step of Basilicus was to recall from banishment Timotheus AElurus, the late Bishop of Alexandria, and to restore him to the bishopric (A.D. 477).  He then addressed to him and the other recalled bishops a circular letter, in which he repeals the decrees of the council of Chalcedon, and re-establishes the Nicene creed, declaring that Jesus was of one substance with the Father, and that Mary was the mother of God.  The march of Timotheus to the seat of his own government, from Constantinople whither he had been summoned, was more like that of a conqueror than of a preacher of peace.  He deposed some bishops and restored others, and, as the decrees of the council of Chalcedon were the particular objects of his hatred, he restored to the city of Ephesus the patriarchal power which that synod had taken away from it.  Basilicus reigned for about two years, when he was defeated and put to death by Zeno, who regained the throne.

As soon as Zeno was again master of the empire, he re-established the creed of the council of Chalcedon, and drove away the Jacobite bishops from their bishoprics.  Death, however, removed Timotheus AElurus before the emperor’s orders were put in force in Alexandria, and the Egyptians then chose Peter Mongus as his successor, in direct opposition to the orders from Constantinople.  But the emperor was resolved not to be beaten; the bishopric of Alexandria was so much a civil office that to have given up the appointment to the Egyptians would have been to allow the people to govern themselves; so he banished Peter, and recalled to the head of the Church Timotheus Salophaciolus, who had been living at Canopus ever since his loss of the bishopric.

But, as the patriarch of Alexandria enjoyed the ecclesiastical revenues, and was still in appearance a teacher of religion, the Alexandrians, in recollection of the former rights of the Church, still claimed the appointment.  They sent John, a priest of their own faith and dean of the church of John the Baptist, as their ambassador to Constantinople, not to remonstrate against the late acts of the emperor, but to beg that on future occasions the Alexandrians might be allowed the old privilege of choosing their own bishop.  The Emperor Zeno seems to have seen through the ambassador’s earnestness, and he first bound him by an oath not to accept the bishopric if he should even be himself chosen to it, and he then sent him back with the promise that the Alexandrians should be allowed to choose their own patriarch on the next vacancy.  But unfortunately John’s ambition was too strong for his oath, and on the death of Timotheus, which happened soon afterwards, he spent a large sum of money in bribes among the clergy and chief men of the city, and thereby got himself chosen patriarch.  On this, the emperor seems to have thought only of punishing John, and he at once gave up the struggle with the Egyptians.  Believing that, of the two patriarchs who had been chosen by the people, Peter