he Fathers
be violated."[108] St. Gregory repeats:--"I receive the four Councils of
the holy universal Church as the four books of the Holy Gospel."[109] Mr.
Newman says, "that the definition passed at Chalcedon is the Apostolic
Truth once delivered to the Saints, is most firmly to be received from
faith in that overruling Providence, which is by special promise extended
over the Acts of the Church."[110] Does it not equally follow that the
Church government recognised as immemorial, and enforced at Nicea,
Constantinople, Ephesus, and Chalcedon, _and the doctrine which is involved
therein_, are likewise to be maintained, and that none who appeal to them
with truth, as practised by themselves, whatever else they may fall into,
can be guilty of schism?

The hundred and thirty years between the death of St. Leo and the accession
of St. Gregory, were years of trouble, confusion, and disaster: "the stars
fell from heaven, and the powers of the heavens were shaken." The Western
empire was overthrown; barbarians and heretics obtained the mastery in
Italy, and generally in the West; there was but one fixed and central
authority to which the eyes of churchmen could turn with hope and
confidence in the whole West, that of the Roman Pontiff.

I select the following points as bearing on our subject:--

In the year 536 we have one of those rare instances in which the Primacy of
Rome is seen acting on the Eastern Church, but in perfect accordance with
the Canons and the Patriarchal system. The Pope Agapetus had been compelled
by Theodatus, king of the Goths, to proceed to Constantinople, in order
that he might, if possible, prevail upon Justinian not to attempt the
recovery of Italy. Not having wherewith to pay the expenses of his journey,
he had been compelled to borrow money on the sacred vessels of St. Peter's
Church. On arriving at Constantinople he refused to see the new Patriarch
Anthimus, or to receive him to his communion, both because he was suspected
of heresy, and had been translated from the See of Trebisond. Anthimus
refused to appear in the Council that the Pope held at Constantinople to
judge him; so he was deposed, and returned his pallium to the Emperor.
Mennas was elected in his stead by the Emperor, with the approbation of all
the Clergy and the people, and the Pope consecrated him in the church of
St. Mary. "Pope Agapetus wrote a synodal letter to Peter, Patriarch of
Jerusalem, to acquaint him with what he had do