great lawgiver began always in the name of the Lord,
and the code emphasised as the foundation of society and civil law the
orthodox doctrines of the Trinity and of Christ. And step by step the
great emperor endeavoured, in matters of morality and of gambling, to
enforce the moral laws of the Church. Works of charity and mercy were
undertaken by Church and State, hand in hand, and the noble buildings
which marked the magnificent period of Byzantine architecture were the
works of a society which, from the highest to the lowest member, was
penetrated by Christian ideals. Thus, very briefly, we may epitomise
the work of the first period we have mentioned. A word must be said
later of later times.

[1] Mansi, _Concilia_, ix. 384. The phrase was preserved in the Hymn
'_O onogenes_, which was inserted in the Mass, and the composition of
which is ascribed to Justinian himself.

[2] Mansi, ix. 181.

[3] Cf. Nicaea, Canon vi.; Constantinople, Canons ii. and iii.;
Ephesus, Canon viii.; Chalcedon, Canons ix. and xvii.

[4] Dr. W. Bright, _Waymarks in Church History_, p. 238.

[5] See Hefele, _History of the Councils_ (Eng. trans.), iv. 311.

[6] Given in Evagrius, v. 4.

[7] A.D. 700, Mansi, _Concilia_, xii. 115.

[8] See Gibbon, ed. J. B. Bury, vol. v. pp. 139, 140, 522, 523; and W.
H. Hutton, _The Church of the Sixth Century_, pp. 204-240, 303-309.

[9] Cf. Harnack, _Dogmengeschichte_, ii. pp. 396, 396, 399, etc.

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CHAPTER III

THE CHURCH IN ITALY, 461-590

[Sidenote: The end of the Empire in the West, 476.]

The death of S. Leo took place but a few years before the Roman Empire
in the West became extinguished, and political interests entirely
submerged those of religion in the years that followed it. Dimly,
beneath the noise of the barbarian triumph, we discern the survival in
Rome of the Church's powers and claims; but it is not till the rise of
another pope of mighty genius that they claim any consideration as
important. In 461 died S. Leo; in 476 Romulus Augustulus, the last of
the continuous line of Western Caesars, surrendered his sceptre to the
Herul Odowakar. The barbarian governed with the aid of Roman
statesmen: he fixed his seat of rule at Ravenna rather than at Rome: he
showed consideration to the saintly Epiphanius, Bishop of Pavia:
heretic though he was, he desired to keep well with the Catholic
bishops of Rome. After him came a greater man, Theodoric the Goth,
whose captu