onstans was hated by all, (says
Theophanes, Chron. p. 292). When the Monothelite monk failed in his
miracle, the people shouted, (Concil. tom. vii. p. 1032.) But this was
a natural and transient emotion; and I much fear that the latter is an
anticipation of the good people of Constantinople.]

[Footnote 107: The history of Monothelitism may be found in the Acts of
the Synods of Rome (tom. vii. p. 77--395, 601--608) and Constantinople,
(p. 609--1429.) Baronius extracted some original documents from the
Vatican library; and his chronology is rectified by the diligence of
Pagi. Even Dupin (Bibliotheque Eccles. tom. vi. p. 57--71) and Basnage
(Hist. de l'Eglise, tom. i. p. 451--555) afford a tolerable abridgment.]

Before the end of the seventh century, the creed of the incarnation,
which had been defined at Rome and Constantinople, was uniformly
preached in the remote islands of Britain and Ireland; [108] the same
ideas were entertained, or rather the same words were repeated, by all
the Christians whose liturgy was performed in the Greek or the Latin
tongue. Their numbers, and visible splendor, bestowed an imperfect claim
to the appellation of Catholics: but in the East, they were marked with
the less honorable name of Melchites, or Royalists; [109] of men,
whose faith, instead of resting on the basis of Scripture, reason,
or tradition, had been established, and was still maintained, by the
arbitrary power of a temporal monarch. Their adversaries might allege
the words of the fathers of Constantinople, who profess themselves the
slaves of the king; and they might relate, with malicious joy, how
the decrees of Chalcedon had been inspired and reformed by the emperor
Marcian and his virgin bride. The prevailing faction will naturally
inculcate the duty of submission, nor is it less natural that dissenters
should feel and assert the principles of freedom. Under the rod of
persecution, the Nestorians and Monophysites degenerated into rebels and
fugitives; and the most ancient and useful allies of Rome were taught
to consider the emperor not as the chief, but as the enemy of the
Christians. Language, the leading principle which unites or separates
the tribes of mankind, soon discriminated the sectaries of the East, by
a peculiar and perpetual badge, which abolished the means of intercourse
and the hope of reconciliation. The long dominion of the Greeks, their
colonies, and, above all, their eloquence, had propagated a language