it became a not
uncommon profession of faith to be made by a bishop at his
consecration. At the end of the eighth century it seems to have been
widely recited in church. But it certainly goes back very much
earlier. Caesarius, Bishop of Arles (501-43), the opponent of
semi-Pelagianism, has been proved to have used the creed continually:
it was quoted also by his rival, Avitus, Bishop of Vienne (490-523),
and it is probable that it represents the teaching of the great abbey
of Lerins in the controversies of the beginning of the sixth century.
It was decisively a Western creed: it {82} never came into the offices
of the orthodox Church of the East. In the West it became a popular
means of instruction and a popular confession of the joy of Christian
faith. It was sung in procession, recited in the services, meditated
on by the clergy. It formed a model of orthodox expression of belief
in days of confusion and controversy.

[1] This story is discredited by a recent writer, Mr. Dudden, _S.
Gregory the Great_, i. 407 (following F. Goerres), but I see no reason
to doubt that S. Gregory was rightly informed, and I accept what Dr.
Hodgkin (_Eng. Hist. Rev._, ii. 216) states as the facts.

[2] Mansi, _Concilia_, ix. 977-1010.

[3] See below, p. 109.

[4] See B. L. Ottley, _Doctrine of the Incarnation_, ii. 152-4.

[5] See F. C. Conybeare, _The Key of Truth_, p. 67.

{83}

CHAPTER VII

THE CHURCH AND THE MONOTHELITE CONTROVERSY, 628-725

The years of peace that succeeded the death of Justinian ended with the
triumph of the Empire over barbarian foes. Christian philosophy had
seemed to be quiescent, but there were questions which thoughtful men
must have seen would soon come up for solution as the inevitable result
of the Monophysite controversy. Thought in the active Eastern minds
could not stand still; and the West too, as the barbarians were
conquered, assimilated, and converted by the Church, began to enter
keenly into the theology of the East. In Gaul and Britain, as well as
at Milan and at Rome, there arose critics and historians who could
carry on the work of Leo the Great and of the line of chroniclers who
had told in Greek the story of the Church's life. A word at first as
to the general interest of the period.

[Sidenote: The East in the seventh century.]

With the victory of Heraclius over the Persians in 628, it might seem
that heresy would be driven from its home in the distant East, t