Aquileia, with their Bishops, were out of communion with
Rome from A.D. 568 to 698.[125] A reconciliation takes place, and communion
is renewed. Facts of the same nature, and applying closely to our own
position, are mentioned by Bossuet;[126] viz. that the Spanish Bishops, not
having been present at, nor invited to, the sixth General Council, did not
receive it as Ecumenical, though invited to do so by the Pope of the day,
until they had themselves examined its acts, and found them accordant with
previous Councils. And as to the second Nicene, or seventh General Council,
the Gallic Bishops, with Charlemagne at their head, long refused to receive
it, though supported by the Pope, because neither they nor other
Occidentals were present at it. "Nor were they in the mean time held as
heretical or schismatical, though they differed on a point of the greatest
moment, that is, the interpretation of the precepts of the first table,
because they seemed to inquire into the matter with a good intention, not
with obstinate party spirit."[127] Yet Pope Adrian had himself written
against them.

Now all these various facts, from the first Nicene Council, converge
towards one view, for which, I think, there is as full evidence as for most
facts of history,--that the Pope, to the time of St. Gregory the Great, and
indeed long afterwards, was but the first of the Patriarchs, who, in their
own Patriarchates, enjoyed a co-ordinate and equal authority with his in
the West. I suppose De Maistre acknowledges as much in his own way, when he
says, "The Pope is invested with five very distinct characters; for he is
Bishop of Rome, Metropolitan of the Suburbican Churches, Primate of Italy,
Patriarch of the West, and, lastly, Sovereign Pontiff. The Pope has never
exercised over the other Patriarchates any powers save those resulting from
this last; so that except in some affair of high importance, some striking
abuse, or some appeal in the greater causes, the Sovereign Pontiffs mixed
little in the ecclesiastical administration of the Eastern Churches. And
this was a great misfortune, not only for them, but for the states where
they were established. It may be said that the Greek Church, from its
origin, carried in its bosom a germ of division, which only completely
developed itself at the end of twelve centuries, but which always existed
under forms less striking, less decisive, and so endurable."[128] The
confession of one who travesties antiquit