In 646, the African bishops, in four councils, had condemned the Monothelite doctrine with the Ecthesis. Pope Theodorus, in accordance with the wish of these African Councils, admonished the new patriarch, Paulus II., at Constantinople, to return to the faith of the Church. Paulus sent a long answer,(26) in which he expressed the Monothelite doctrine. Pope Theodorus condemned him after his nuncios at Constantinople had in vain endeavoured to draw from him an orthodox confession. At the same time Pope Theodorus named Stephen, Bishop of Dor, Apostolic Vicar for Palestine, with the charge to resist the heresy which Sergius, Bishop of Joppa, was spreading, and to depose the bishops intruded by him. The patriarchal chair at Jerusalem was, in fact, vacant, and the patriarchate laid waste by this usurper. Hence the Pope took charge of it. So afterwards John of Philadelphia was appointed Apostolic Vicar. Paulus did not give way. He moved the emperor Constans II. in 648 to issue a new doctrinal decree, drawn up by himself, called the Typus, which was to take the place of the Ecthesis, and prepare in another way the spread of Monothelite error. It was to forbid under the severest secular punishments any dispute respecting One or Two Operations in our Lord or One or Two Wills. In itself it seemed intended to quiet the westerns, but in the actual state of things only for the prejudice of Catholics. Maximus the Confessor shewed that in it truth and error were alike intended to be suppressed. The eastern bishops were again compelled to subscribe. Those who refused were persecuted, even the papal legates. Their altar in the Placidia palace was destroyed, and they were forbidden to celebrate, and severe ill-treatment added. While the Greek emperor, led by his patriarch Paulus, was issuing his edict concerning the Christian faith, Muawia, as general of the third chalif, Osman, with a fleet of 1700 ships, great and small, being already in possession of Syria, had made a descent on Cyprus, occupied the city of Constantia, subjected and laid waste the whole island.(27) Pope Theodorus is recorded in the book of the Popes as “a lover of the poor, large-handed, kind to all, and very merciful”. CHAPTER II. POPE MARTIN, HIS COUNCIL, AND HIS MARTYRDOM. Martinus prærogativa martyrii ter maximus nuncupandus. Baronius, Tom. viii., Preface.