From that event may be dated a long period of depression for the Roman chair. The city was impoverished-even the churches had been pillaged-and the western branch of the empire was in the last stages of dissolution. Leo's successors were able men and continued his policy, but their lot was fallen upon evil days. The bishop Simplicius beheld the last phantom emperors of the west flit in swift succession over the stage, saw them "Come like shadows, so depart " and witnessed the retirement into private life of the last of them all, in the year 476. Constantinople was now the sole seat of empire, and the primacy was lost to the see of Rome if it were grounded only upon a political claim. It happened at the same time that Acacius, one of the ablest and most aggressive of the line, strong in the favor of the eastern emperor, was upon the patriarchal throne of New Rome. Simplicius was forced to assume the defensive, and could only remonstrate when Acacius ventured to consecrate a patriarch for Antioch, acting as if he were a universal bishop. A vehement Monophysite reaction had set in throughout the east and Timothy Aelurus, Peter Mongus and Peter the Fuller-arrant Monophysites all-were tyrannizing over the sees of Alex andria and Antioch. In accordance with the state policy before mentioned, the Emperor Zeno endeavored to effect a pacification, and with the collaboration of Acacius prepared his famous plan of union-the Henoticon of the year 482,-in which he sought to put an end to the controversy by condemning both Nestorianism and Eutychianism, and, to placate the Monophysites, seemed to disparage the council of Chalcedon. Peter Mongus and Peter the Fuller accepted the overture, were received into communion by Acacius, and a specious peace was established, which was soon broken by the bishop of Rome. Simplicius had watched these proceedings with ever increasing indignation; he died the following year, and was succeeded by Felix III., who heartily shared his views; it was not to be endured that such reflections should be cast upon the great theological triumph of Rome, the definition of Leo. In 484, Felix solemnly excommunicated Acacius for communing with heretics; the excommunication was retorted; and the churches east and west went into a grievous schism that lasted for more than a generation, and heralded their definitive separation. Outwardly apparent differences even now began to distinguish the Latin from the Greek clergy. It may be that a desire to distinguish themselves from the heathen philosophers, the Jewish Rabbis, and the Arian priests of the barbarian nations, all of whom wore beards, led the Latins to adopt the practice of shaving the face,--but a plainer reason lay in the repudiation of sex by a clergy bound to celibacy, of which the smooth face was the outward and visible sign. And so henceforth the bearded Greeks and the smooth shaven Latins regarded each other with mutual abhorrence. Here we may end. We have traced the rise of the Roman supremacy, and the relations of the two great sees of Christendom to the time of their first serious severance. It would be interesting, if time permitted, to sketch the career of Gelasius I., -the typical Roman bishop of the era of the schism, of Hormisdas, during whose episcopate harmony was restored, and then to tell of the remarkable reassertion of imperial authority under Justinian, and the consequent extreme depression of the Roman bishopric in the persons of the hapless Vigilius and Pelagius I. and II. Even Gregory I. the Great shared in this depression, and was scandalized by the assumption of the title "Ecumenical Bishop" by the patriarch of Constantinople, with the concurrence of the emperor. Then there loom up in the perspective of centuries, the Monothelite controversy, the Quinisext council, which greatly widened the growing breach between the churches, the Iconoclastic controversy with its momentous issues, the war of Nicholas I. and Photius,—but these offer material for many lectures, and demand hours for adequate presentation. We must hasten to our end, the final and irreconcilable schism. To attain it, we must vault over six centuries, to find ourselves in strange surroundings. It is the middle of the eleventh century; the western empire has been re-established in wondrous guise as the Holy Roman Empire of the German nationalities; feudalism is rampant; Norman freebooters have wrested Southern Italy and are preparing to wrest Sicily from the relaxing grasp of the Greek emperor; Leo IX. is on the papal throne; Hildebrand and congenial minds are maturing their vast designs for the aggrandizement of the papacy, which already feels the upward heave of the spring-tide of medieval devotion. The only way for the Greek church to preserve its self-government is to break off all connection with Rome. The patriarch, Michael Cærularius, commands the churches of Apulia to sever all relations with the Latin church, charging it with many heresies, summing up all previous charges,-the doctrine of the dual procession of the Holy Spirit, compulsory celibacy of the clergy, and the rest,-—and adding a new one, the use of unleavened bread in the Eucharist, on account of which he brands the Latins with the odious appellation, Azymites. Negotiation is fruitless; the thunders of excommunication from |