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272 Leo the Armenian. This Michael had been shut up in a monastery with his three sons, who had been made eunuchs, in order to incapacitate them for reigning. Ignatius passed through all the lower degrees of the clergy, and was a priest when chosen for the Patriarchal see. The Emperor Michael was a licentious man, who left his uncle Bardas to govern the empire. Ignatius drew upon himself the hatred of the Emperor by refusing to make nuns of the Empress dowager Theodora and her two daughters. He made a powerful enemy of Bardas, to whom he publicly refused the communion, because of the scandal of his private life. Moreover, from the day of his consecration, he had also incurred the enmity of Gregory, Bishop of Syracuse, by humiliating him and refusing to permit him to take part in that solemnity, on the ground that he was accused of divers misdemeanours; which was indeed true, but he had not been judged. Ignatius subsequently judged and condemned him; but Rome, to which Gregory appealed, refused at first to confirm the sentence, notwithstanding the solicitations of Ignatius, and only consented when war was openly declared against Photius and his adherents.

We willingly admit that Ignatius had none but good intentions and conscientious motives in all that he did; but it is also just to acknowledge that he imitated neither the prudence of a Tarasius, nor the sublime self-denial of a Chrysostom. Naturally enough, the recollection of the imperial power, of which his father had been deprived by violence, did not dispose him to humour those who held that high position which he looked upon as the birthright of his family. The imperial court accused him of taking sides with an adventurer who fancied he had claims on the imperial crown, and he was exiled.

Many of the bishops before him had been equally ex-