s
may either in general be exercised by delegates, or was committed to them
for the special occasion.

The emperor[168] in his legislation left no part of the Church's
discipline unregarded. His purpose was in all respects to make the State
Christian; and he considered no part of divine and human things, whether it
were dogma or conduct,--which, together, made up the Church's
life,--withdrawn from his care and guardianship. Observances which had
begun in custom, and gradually been drawn out definitely and enacted in
canons, he took into his _Digest_, not with the intention of giving them
greater inward force or stronger grounds as duties, but to show the unity
of his own effort with that of the Church. He willingly put the imperial
stamp on her salutary regulations. He showed his readiness to help her with
external force wherever the inviolable sanctity of her laws seemed to be
threatened by the opposition of individuals. In this he recognised the
unchangeable order which is so deeply rooted in the nature both of Church
and State, that order which is the greatest security for the wellbeing and
prosperity of both. And the Church in the course of her long life had
hitherto almost universally maintained this order; always, at least, in
principle. If it was anywhere transgressed, it was either because the
secular power was acting under special commission and approval of the
Church, or, if that power acted without such approval, it met with open
contradiction whereby not only the illegality of the particular action was
marked, but the principle of the Church's freedom and independence was
preserved.

There is a passage in the address of the eastern bishops to Tarasius,
patriarch of Constantinople, quoted in the Second Nicene Council of
789,[169] the Seventh General, which cites the words of Justinian given
above in one of his laws. The bishops say in their own character--and they
are bishops who describe themselves "as sitting in darkness and the shadow
of death, that is, of the Arabian impiety"--"It is the priesthood which
sanctifies the empire and forms its basis; it is the empire which
strengthens and supports the priesthood. Concerning these, a wise king,
most blessed among holy princes, said: The greatest gift of God to men is
the priestly and the imperial power, the one ordering and administering
divine things, the other ruling human things by upright laws."

If we considered the principles of Justinian alone as exhi