in this submission does not exhibit the mind of the Church, what
form of words, what consent of will, can ever be shown to convey it? If
those who subscribed this confession subscribed a falsehood, why pretend
any longer to attribute authority to the Church? But it must be added, if
their confession was the truth, why not obey it?

It is to be noted that this period of sixty years is full of events which
caused the greatest suffering to the Popes, were unceasingly deplored by
them, and resisted to the utmost of their power. The temporal condition of
themselves, of the bishops, of their people in Italy, Africa, France,
Spain, Illyricum, Britain, was most sad. The most vehement of persecutions
desolated Africa. Again, there was the suppression of the western emperor,
with the consequent subjection of the Apostolic See to the temporal
government of the most hateful of heresies: the Oriental despotism of Zeno
and Anastasius, continued for forty-four years, mixed with another heresy,
and tending to destroy both faith and independence in the bishops subject
to it. The Popes, as Romans, felt with the keenest sympathy the political
degradation of Rome. Can any appeal be more touching than that which they
made, and made in vain, to the "Christian king and Roman prince"? Out of
all these things, whose natural consequences tended to extinguish their
principate, came forth the most magnificent attestation to it which is to
be found in the first five hundred years of the Christian religion.

NOTES:

[70] _Epist._ i.; Labbe, v. 406.

[71] Mansi, viii. 193.

[72] Epistola Aviti episcopi Viennensis ad Clodoveum regem
Francorum.--Mansi, viii. 175.

[73] See for this narrative the German Roehrbacher, viii. 486; Civilta,
1855, art. 9, pp. 152-3; Hefele, ii. 607; Photius, i. 136.

[74] Photius, i. 137. Der Einfluss des roemischen Stuhles war doch mehr
durch die Erneuerung des laurentianischen Schisma als durch die Macht der
arianischen Ostgothen auf laengere Zeit gelaehmt.

[75] _Ep._ vi.; Mansi, viii. 213-217.

[76] Qualiscunque praesulis apostolici debes vocem patienter audire.

[77] _I.e._, Manicheans placed the seat of evil in matter, and Eutycheans
denied the materiality of the Lord's body. The Pope alludes to the
Emperor's Eutychean doctrine.

[78] Catholici principes quidem semper apostolicos praesules institutos
suis literis praevenerunt, et illam confessionem fidemque praecipuam,
tanquam boni filii, quaesierunt debitae