d the beginning of
the fifth century, it is the Christian Church which saved Christianity. It
is the Church, with its institutions, its magistrates, and its power, which
offered a vigorous defence to the internal dissolution of the empire, to
barbarism; which conquered the barbarians; which became the bond, the
means, the principle of civilisation to the Roman and the barbarian
world."[27]

In this passage, Guizot speaks of the Church as a government, as a unity.
At the very moment of which he speaks, St. Augustine was addressing the
Pope as the fountainhead of that unity; and in the midst of the dissolution
an emperor was recommending him to the Gallic bishops "as the chief of the
episcopal coronet"[28] encircling the earth. The whole structure which
lasted through this earthquake of nations had its cohesion in him--a fact
seen even more clearly in the time of the third Valentinian than in that of
the conquering Constantine.

But looking to that East, which dates from the Encyclikon of a Basiliscus
and the Henotikon of a Zeno, here the Pope appears as the sole check to a
despotic power. He alone could speak to the emperor on an equal and even a
superior footing. Would such a power not have repudiated his interference,
had it not been convinced of an authority beyond its reach to deny? The
first generation following the utter impotence of Rome as reduced to a
_municipium_ under Arian rulers will answer this question, as we shall see
hereafter, with fullest effect.

I have adduced above three political situations. The first is when the
Primacy passes from dealing with one government to deal with more than one;
the second when the Primacy has to deal with an unsettled world of many
governments; the third when it is the sole fixed point in the face of a
hurricane on one side and a despotism on the other. I observe that the
testimony of all three concurs to bring out its action and establish its
divine character. As an epilogue to all that has been said, I will suppose
a case.

Three men, great with the natural greatness of intellect, greater still in
the acquired greatness of character, greatest of all in the supernatural
grace of saintliness, witnessed this fifth century from its beginning: one
of them, during two decades of years; the second, during three; the last,
during six decades. They saw in their own persons, or they heard in
authentic narratives, all its doings--the cities plundered and overthrown;
the countr