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Two days after the death of Michael, Photius was deposed." He had formerly been on friendly terms with Basil, and contradictory accounts are given of the reason for his deposition. By some it is explained in a manner discreditable to him, while others say that he provoked the emperor by refusing the eucharist to him as a murderer and an usurper.

Nicolas had written to Hincmar, detailing the history of the Bulgarian affair, and requesting the assistance of the Frankish clergy, whose character stood highest for learning among the clergy of the west, to combat the attacks which had been made by the Greeks on the Christianity of the Latins." In consequence of this invitation, Hincmar desired Odo bishop of Beauvais, and other divines, to collect materials for a general defence; and the result was the production of treatises by Odo, Æneas of Paris, and Ratramn. Of these, the work of Ratramn is regarded as the most valuable. The first three books of it are devoted to the question of the Holy Spirit's procession, while the fourth and last discusses the controversy as to rites and discipline. It is remarkable that, in opposition to the line usually taken by Nicolas, the monk of Corbie dwells on the sufficiency of uniting in faith, and censures the Greeks, not for varying from the Roman usages, but for insisting on their own as exclusively correct and necessary. The Greek doctrine as to the Holy Spirit was also condemned by a synod of bishops from the dominions of Louis of Germany, which met at Worms in 868.1 Basil reinstated Ignatius in the patriarchate with great pomp, and sent a member of each party to Rome, accompanied by one of his own officers, for the purpose of representing the state of affairs;

y Vita Ign. 981. Mr. Finlay says that he remained in office two years. ii.

274.

z G. Hamart. Contin. 754; Zonaras, ap. Baron. 867. 101; Schröckh, xxiv. 161-2. The refusal of communion seems hardly agreeable to the character of Photius, who had not scrupled to associate with Michael and Bardas, notwithstanding their vices (Neand. vi. 315). Nor is it probable that, if such a refusal had been given, he would, in reminding Basil of their former friendship, have said in particular, "You have received at my hands the awful and immaculate mysteries' (Ep. 97, init.). Baronius solves the question in his own way, by saying that the patriarch was deposed in consequence of the condemnation by Nicolas. 867. 101.

Nic. Ep. 70; Hincm. ii. 809. Some of the charges which the rope mentions

g

Dr.

as calumnious were not without founda-
tion in the practice of some among the
Latins. See Giesel. II. i. 375.
Floss supposes that Scotus, as might
have been expected from his general
character, took the Greek side in the
controversy between the churches, and
that this was the reason why Nicolas
endeavoured to procure his dismissal
from the court of Charles the Bald.
(Patrol. cxxii. Praef. xxiii.; see above,
p. 314.) But the date assigned to the
pope's letter, A.D. 861-2, seems hardly
consistent with this.

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but the envoy of Photius was shipwrecked and died on the journey, so that his cause was left without an advocate. The representative of Ignatius was charged with a letter from the patriarch, in which the authority of St. Peter's successors was acknowledged in terms such as had not been usual at Constantinople.' Adrian, who had now succeeded Nicolas, assembled a synod which renewed the former sentence against Photius. It was ordered that the copy of the Byzantine synod's acts which had been transmitted to Rome should be burnt, and that those at Constantinople should share the same fate."

A council, which is regarded in the Roman church as the eighth General Council," met at Constantinople in October 869. It was attended by two bishops and a deacon from Rome; Antioch was represented by the metropolitan of Tyre, Jerusalem by a presbyter; and to these a representative of the Alexandrian see was added at the ninth session." Some high civil officers were present, but the number of bishops was at first exceedingly small; and, although afterwards gradually increased, it did not rise beyond 60 at the ninth session, and 102 or 109 at the tenth and last."

On the first day the sentence of the late Roman council against Photius was adopted, and all bishops who afterwards joined the assembly were required to sign it. The second, third, and fourth sessions were chiefly occupied in dealing with bishops and clergy who, after having been ordained by Ignatius or his predecessor, had submitted to Photius. These presented a confession of their offences, alleging that they had been forced or deceived into them;

h Vita Ign. 985. Anastasius the Librarian makes an edifying use of the shipwreck,-"Qui navim Christi, hoc est ecclesiam, sciderat, navis suæ scissionem non inconvenienter incurrit." Hard. v. 754.

The letters of the emperor and of the patriarch are in Hard. v. 790-3. k Hard. v. 862-871. m Ib. 874.

n See Baron. 869. 61-4; Pagi, xv. 180; Palmer on the Church, ii. 215. • Hard. v. 764, 771.

P Hard. v. 884, 1092. There are two reports of this council-the one in Latin, by Anastasius the Librarian, who was then at Constantinople for the purpose of negotiating a marriage between the families of Louis II. and Basil (Hard. v. 755); the other Greek and they vary very considerably. In the Latin acts there are 27 canons (Hard. v.

899, seqq.); in the Greek, only 14 (ib.
1097, seqq.): the reason being, perhaps,
that the Latins prepared the larger num-
ber, while the Greeks inserted in their
report such only as related to the main
subject (Schröckh, xxiv. 170-1). Among
those which are found in Latin only are
some which lay down pseudoisidorian
doctrines as to the position of metropo-
litans, and the trial of bishops (cc. 17,
26). One, directed against the icono-
clasts, is found in both versions (c. 3
Gr.; c. 7 Lat.); and a Frank writer,
the continuator of Aimoin, speaks of
this as contrary to the orthodox doctrine
of the fathers. Giesel. II. i. 377.
a Ib. 764-5; 1025-7.

Held on the last day of February, 870. See Pagi, xv. 163; Schröckh, xxiv. 164-5; Hefele, iv. 409.

Hard, v. 773, 817.

and they were admitted to communion on condition of performing some penitential exercises. At the fourth session there was a sharp discussion with a bishop named Theophilus, who was firm in his adherence to Photius. The patriarch himself was brought forward on the fifth day, and met the questions addressed to him by a dignified silence. When urged to speak, he replied that God would hear him although he said nothing. "You will not," said the Roman legates, "by your silence escape a greater condemnation." 66 Neither," he replied, "did Jesus by holding his peace escape condemnation ;" and he resumed his former silence." When the lay president of the council, Baanes, who treated him with a courtesy unlike the behaviour of the ecclesiastics, afterwards asked him what he could allege in his justification, Photius answered, "My justifications are not in this world." *

The emperor appeared at the sixth session, and told the council that he had absented himself from its earlier meetings lest he should be supposed to influence its decision as to Photius. But the affair of the patriarch was not yet concluded. He was cited before the council on the seventh day, and entered leaning on a staff;—“ Take away his staff," said the Roman legate Marinus, "it is an ensign of pastoral dignity." The bishops of his party in vain appealed to the canons. Anathemas were pronounced against Photius and his adherents, the most odious epithets being attached to their names; b the writings and documents on his side were burnt;" and, in token of the exasperation by which the council was animated, it is said that the condemnation of the patriarch was subscribed in the wine of the eucharistic cup.

In the course of the council's proceedings, however, it appeared that the personal question as to the patriarchate was not the only subject of difference between Rome and Constantinople. The Romans complained that the pope's letter had been mutilated in the reading; the Greeks told Ignatius that his church had been made the servant of Rome; and Ignatius himself was as resolute as Photius to assert the jurisdiction of his see over Bulgaria. Some ambassadors from that country were at Constantinople, and their

t Hard. v. 782, seqq.

u Ib. 819, 1051.

Ib. 822, 1054.

y Ib. 835, 1064.

z Ib. 839, 1065.

a Ib. 841.

b Ib. 873.

e Ib. 875, 1086.

Vita Ign. 988.

The biographer,

however, thinks that Photius was too

gently treated, and cites prodigies which
soon after happened in favour of this
opinion (988-9). In the subscriptions
to the acts of the council, the Roman
legates stand first, while Basil and his
sons do not sign until after the represen-
tatives of all the patriarchates. (Hard.
v. 922-3.) See Hefele, i. 25-7.
e Schröckh, xxiv. 173.

master-by what influence is unknown-had been again induced to waver in his religious allegiance. The ambassadors, on being summoned into the emperor's presence, with Ignatius, the Roman legates, and the representatives of the eastern patriarchs, inquired to which church they must consider their country to belong. The orientals asked to which church it had belonged while a province of the empire, and whether the clergy at the time of the Bulgarian conquest had been Greeks or Latins. It was answered that the province had been subject to Constantinople, and that the clergy found in it were Greeks; and on these grounds it was adjudged that Bulgaria ought to belong to the patriarchate of Constantinople. The Roman legates, however, disputed the alleged facts, and handed to Ignatius a paper from the pope, charging him not to interfere, which the patriarch received in a respectful manner, but did not further regard. The emperor dismissed the legates with coolness. Ignatius in the same year consecrated an archbishop for Bulgaria, and within a short time all the Latin clergy were ejected from that country.

A.D. 878.

John VIII. wrote to the Bulgarians, exhorting them to return to the communion of his church, which they had formerly chosen, and warning them as to the danger of a connexion with the Greeks, who, he said, were always in one heresy or another.h He wrote to Ignatius, telling him that, as he was indebted to the apostolic see for his dignity, so he should lose it if he kept possession of Bulgaria. The Greek clergy, who were already excommunicate for introducing their errors into a church planted by the holy see, must be withdrawn within thirty days; and Ignatius is threatened with excommunication and deposition if he should neglect the order. Letters in a like tone were written to the Bulgarian king, and to the Greek clergy in that country; and a violent collision would probably have ensued, but for the death of Ignatius, which took place in 878.

k

Photius, after his deprivation, had at first been treated with extreme severity. He complains in his letters that he is strictly guarded by soldiers; that he is deprived of all intercourse with relations, friends, monks, and clergy; that his property is confiscated, that he is allowed no attendance of servants, and in his sickness can obtain no medicines. He suffers from hunger, and yet more from

m

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"a famine of the word of God;" he is separated from all books—a cruelty unexampled in the persecutions of the orthodox by heretics. or by pagans; and in the mean time his adherents are cruelly treated, churches are destroyed, holy things are profaned, the poor, whom he had tended for the benefit of his soul, are left friendless and helpless." He inveighs against the synod of 869 as having neglected all the forms of justice in its dealings with him — as worse than anything that had been known among the most lawless and savage heathens."

But after a time he found means to recover the favour of Basil. According to the biographer of Ignatius, he drew up an imaginary pedigree, tracing the emperor's ancestry to the Persian kings; this was written in antique letters on parchment of corresponding appearance; it was bound in the cover of an old manuscript, and was introduced into the library of the palace by the keeper, who took an opportunity of showing it to Basil, and suggested that Photius was the only man capable of explaining it. A still more unlikely tale asserts that the emperor's love was won by charms administered in his food and drink. But it would seem that in truth Basil, out of regard for the unequalled learning of Photius, and perhaps also from a wish to conciliate his partisans, whose constancy to the ejected patriarch may have raised some apprehensions, recalled him from banishment, and appointed him tutor to Leo, the heir apparent of the crown. While thus employed, he was reconciled with Ignatius, and from that time lived on good terms with him, steadily refusing to become the head of a party in opposition to the aged patriarch."

r

Oct. 878.

Photius was now raised to the see as successor of Ignatius, and announced his promotion to John VIII., with a request that the pope would send legates to a new synod which was to be held at Constantinople. The chief object of this application was to secure the assistance of Rome for the purpose of quieting the Ignatian party;" but John seized on it as an acknowledgment that the title of Photius to the patriarchal throne depended on the papal

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