Page:Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire vol 5 (1897).djvu/165

 OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE 143 posed a more summary decision, by raising a dead man to life ; the prelates assisted at the trial ; but the acknowledged failure may serve to indicate that the passions and prejudices of the multitude were not enlisted on the side of the Monothelites. In the next generation, when the son of Constantine was de- posed and slain by the disciple of Macarius, they tasted the feast of revenge and dominion ; the image or monument of the sixth council was defaced, and the original acts were com- mitted to the flames. But in the second year their patron Avas cast headlong from the throne, the bishops of the East were released from their occasional conformity, the Roman faith was more firmly replanted by the orthodox successors of Bardanes, and the fine problems of the incarnation were for- gotten in the more popular and visible quarrel of the worship of images.ii'^ Before the end of the seventh century, the crec:' if the union of incarnation^ which had been defined at Rome and Constanti- and Latin nople, was uniformly preached in the remote islands of Britain and Ireland ; ^ 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 splendour bestowed an imperfect claim to the appellation of Catholics ; but in the East they were marked with the less honourable name of Melchiies or 11" The history of Monothehtism may be found in the Acts of the Synods of Rome (torn. 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 Eccl^s. torn. vi. p. 57-71) and Basnage (Hist, de I'Eglise, torn. i. p. 541-555) afford a tolerable abridg- ment. [Besides these documents we have the works of Maximus and Anastasius. See Appendix i.] Ill In the Lateran synod of 679, Wilfrid, an Anglo-Saxon bishop, subscribed pro omni Aquilonari parte Britannije et Hibernios, quns ab Anglorum et Brit- tonum, necnon Scotoruni et Pictorum gentibus colebantur (Eddius, in Vit. St. Wilfrid, c. 31, apud Pagi, Critica, torn. iii. p. 88). Theodore (magnse insulas Britann'ag archiepiscopus et philosophus) was long expected at Rome (Concil. tom. vii. p. 714), but he contented himself with holding (.'.D. 680) his provincial synod of Hatfield, in which he received the decrees of pope Martin and the first Lateran council against the Monothelites (Concil. tom. vii. p. 597, &c.). Theodore, a monk of Tarsus in Cilicia, had been named to the primacy of Britain by pope Vitalian (a.d. 668; see Baronius and Pagi), whose esteem for his learning and piety was tainted by some distrust of his national character — ne quid contrarium veritati fidei, Grsecorum more, in ecclesiam cui praeesset introduceret. The Cilician was sent from Rome to Canterbury, under the tuition of an African guide (Bedas Hist. Eccles. .' gIorum, 1. iv. c. i). He adhered to the Roman doctrine ; and the same creed of the incarnation has been uniformly transmitted from Theodore to the modern primates, whose sound understanding is perhaps seldom engaged with that abstruse mystery. [For Theodore see the article of Bishop Stubbs in the Diet, of Christian Biography ; cp. Index to Plummer's ed. of Bede, sicb v.]