against the iconoclasts appears to have been merely a pretext" -the real object being to draw the pope into the interest of Photius. In the mean time renewed attempts were made to obtain the resignation of Ignatius, at first by an increase of severity against him and his party, and afterwards by allowing him to return to Constantinople, and offering the restoration of his property.s

A.D. 860.

Nicolas, who had just been raised to the papal chair, was no doubt better informed as to the late events at Constantinople than the patriarch or the emperor imagined; he saw in their application to him an opportunity of extending his influence, and affected to regard it as a reference of the case to his decision. He wrote to the emperor in the style of an independent sovereign, and, as a hint of the price which he set on his co-operation," he insisted on the restoration of the provinces which had been withdrawn from his jurisdiction, and of the patrimony of the church in Calabria and Sicily. He expressed surprise that the case of Ignatius should have been decided without the concurrence of Rome, and on evidence of a kind which was forbidden by the laws of the church; nor did he fail to remark on the inconsistency, that, while Photius represented his predecessor as having resigned from age and infirmity," the emperor spoke of him as having been deposed. Two bishops, Rodoald of Portus, and Zacharias of Anagni, were sent to Constantinople as legates, with instructions to inquire into the matter, and not to admit Photius to communion except as a layman. They were charged with a short letter to the patriarch, in which the pope remarked on his hasty ordination, but told him that, if the legates should make a favourable report, he would gladly own him as a brother.b

y

Michael, provoked by the tone of the pope's reply, received the legates with dishonour. They were detained at Constantinople for months, and were plied with threats and with bribery, which did party might be cleared elsewhere. Milman, ii. 280.

The biographer of Ignatius speaks of it as such (964). Symeon Magister (45) relates that the tombs of Constantine Cepronymus and John the Grammarian were violated, and their bodies burnt, by Michael's orders. Cf. G. Hamart. Contin. p. 746.

* Vita, 964; Schlosser, 603-4. Mr. Dowling thinks that, as Ignatius was already deposed, the renewed severities were not meant to extort a resignation, but the withdrawal of his protest against Photius (Brit. Mag. xviii. 243). But it seems more likely that the resignation was desired in order that the opposite

Dowling, xviii. 373.

* Ep. 2, ap. Hard. v. 339.

y The pope's objections might seem to be founded on the false decretals; but, as we have seen, it would appear that he was as yet (A.D. 860) unacquainted with these, except by the hint in a letter of Servatus Lupus (p. 339); and the quotations which he makes are from Calestine and other popes later than Siricius. z Vita Ign. 964.

a

Nic. Ep. 1. b Ep. 3.

d

not fail of their effect. At length a synod, styled by the Greeks "the First and Second," and consisting, like the Nicene council, of three hundred and eighteen bishops, met in 861. By this assembly Photius was acknowledged as patriarch. The letter from the pope was read, but with the omission of such parts as were likely to give offence-whether it were that the legates had consented to the suppression, or that advantage was taken of their ignorance of Greek. Ignatius was brought before the assembly, and was required to subscribe his own condemnation. He behaved with inflexible spirit, desired the legates to remove the "adulterer," if they wished to appear as judges, and told them to their faces that they had been bribed.' Seventy-two witnesses --a few of them senators and patricians, but for the most part persons of low condition, farriers, ostlers, needle-makers, and the like, while some are described as heretics-were brought forward to sign a paper asserting that he had been promoted by imperial favour, and without canonical election. He was stripped of the patriarchal robes, in which, as the matter was left to his own judgment, he had thought it his duty to appear; he was beaten, and, at last, when exhausted by ill treatment for more than a fortnight, was made, by forcibly holding his hand, to sign with a cross a confession that he had obtained his office irregularly and had administered it tyrannically. It was then announced to him that he must read this document publicly at Whitsuntide, and threats of losing his eyes and his hands were uttered; but he contrived to escape in the disguise of a slave, and found a refuge among the monks of the islands from the search which Bardas caused to be made for him. An earthquake was interpreted as a witness from heaven in his favour, while Photius, by offering another explanation of it, drew on himself a charge of impiety." Bardas, in deference to the general feeling, now permitted the deposed patriarch to return to a monastery in the capital, while Michael jested on the state of affairs by saying that Gryllus was his own patriarch,

Ignatius the patriarch of the Christians, and Photius the patriarch of Bardas.P

The acts of the council were sent to Nicolas, with a request from the emperor that he would confirm them, and at the same time. Photius addressed to the pope a letter which, by the skill displayed in its composition, has extorted the unwilling admiration of Baronius." He professes to deplore in a pathetic strain the elevation which he represents as having been forced on him; the pope, he says, ought rather to pity than to blame him for having exchanged a life of peace, content, and general esteem, for a post of danger, anxiety, unpopularity, and envy." As for the ecclesiastical laws which Nicolas had spoken of in his letters, they were not known at Constantinople. The rule which forbade such ordinations as his was not binding, inasmuch as it had not been sanctioned by a general council; he defends his ordination by the parallel cases of his predecessors Nicephorus and Tarasius, who had been promoted from among the laity, and by the stronger cases of Ambrose in the west and of Nectarius in the east, who had been chosen to the episcopate while yet unbaptised. He had, he says, sanctioned in the late synod a canon against the elevation of a layman to a bishoprick except by regular degrees; and he expresses a wish that the church of Constantinople had before observed the rule, as in that case he would have escaped the troubles which had come on him." The patriarch's tone throughout, although respectful, is that of an equal. In conclusion he reflects with bitter irony on the morals of the Romans, and prays that Rome may no longer continue to be a harbour for worthless persons such as those whom it had lately received without letters of communion-adulterers, thieves, drunkards, oppressors, murderers, and votaries of all uncleanness, who had run away from Constantinople in fear of the punishment for their vices. By this description were intended the refugees of the Ignatian party.

But the Ignatians had also conveyed to the pope their version of the late events, and Nicolas wrote in a lofty strain both to the emperor and to the patriarch. The Roman church, he says, is the head of all, and on it all depend." He sets aside the parallels which Photius had alleged for his consecration, on the ground that

the persons in question had not intruded into the room of wrongfully ejected orthodox bishops," and tells Photius that, if he did not know the laws of the church, it was because they made against his cause. At a synod held in 863, the pope deposed and excommunicated Zacharias for misconduct in his legation, reserving the case of Rodoald, who was then employed on a mission in France; he declared Photius to be deprived of all spiritual office and dignity, and threatened that, in case of his disobedience, he should be excommunicated without hope of restoration until on his deathbed; he annulled all orders conferred by him, and threatened his consecrators and abettors with excommunication. All proceedings against Ignatius were declared to be void, and it was required that he should be acknowledged as patriarch. The pope embodied the resolutions of this council in a letter to the emperor; d and he desired the patriarchs of Alexandria, Antioch, and Jerusalem to make it known that the Roman church in no way consented to the usurpation of Photius.

Michael replied in violent indignation, that by his application to the pope he had not intended to acknowledge him as a judge, or to imply that his own clergy were not sufficient for the decision of the case; he scoffed at Rome as antiquated, and at the Latin language as a barbarous jargon. Nicolas, who was elated by his recent triumph over Lothair, met the emperor with no less haughtiness. He taxes him with disrespect towards God's priests, and, as Michael had spoken of having "ordered" him to send legates to the council, he tells him that such language is not to be used to the successors of St. Peter.h To the reflections on the Latin tongue, he answers that such words, uttered in the "excess of madness," were injurious to Him who made all languages, and were ridiculous as coming from one who styled himself emperor of the Romans. He insists at great length on the privileges of the Roman see, derived not from councils, but from the chief of the Apostles. He utters many threats against all who shall take part

m

against Ignatius. He proposes that the rival patriarchs, or their representatives, should appear at Rome for a trial of the cause." He warns the emperor to abstain from interfering with spiritual things, and desires him to burn his late letter, threatening that otherwise he will himself suspend it to a stake, and, to the disgrace of the writer, will burn it in the sight of all the nations which are at Rome; and he invokes curses on the person who is to read his letters to the emperor, if he should in any respect mutilate or mistranslate them. He sent the acts of the Roman council to the clergy of Constantinople, with a long detail of the affair; and at the same time wrote to Photius, Ignatius, Bardas, Theodora, and the empress Eudoxia.

Nov. 866.

Michael, provoked by the opposition of Nicolas, and by the manner in which it was carried on, looked out for some means of annoying the pope. Although Charlemagne's imperial title had been acknowledged at Constantinople, it was as emperor of the Franks, not of Rome; and his successors had not obtained from the east any higher title than that of king. Michael now offered to recognise Louis II. as emperor, on condition of his acknowledging the council which was so offensive to the pope; and Louis appeared willing to accept the terms. But events soon occurred which rendered this negotiation abortive.

A new question arose to complicate the differences between the Greek and the Latin churches. The Bulgarians, who are supposed to have been a people of Asiatic origin, of the same stock with the Huns, and at one time seated near the sea of Azov, had, about the year 680, occupied a territory in Mosia and Dardania, where, in consequence of intermarriages with the native Slaves, they had gradually exchanged their original language for a dialect of the Slavonic." They had been engaged in continual hostilities with the Byzantine empire; Nicephorus had lost his life in war with them, and they had endangered the throne of Michael Rhangabe. In the early part of the ninth century, Christianity had been introduced among them by some captives, but with little effect. During the regency of Theodora, however, circumstances occurred