Page:Guettée papacy.djvu/338

334 the sacrament of confirmation to those who had received it from Greek priests. This was such a flagrant violation that even the Romanists do not defend it.

Photius, in his encyclical letter, appeals to all the Apostolic sees of the East against the innovations of the Italians. He concludes by entreating them to adhere publicly to the second Nicene Council, to proclaim it the seventh œcumenical, and to declare against the innovations of the barbarous nations of the West who undertake to adulterate the true doctrine.

Photius had some reason to consider the Western people as little civilized. Since the invasion by the tribes which had transformed the West, the ecclesiastical schools and libraries had been destroyed, and the clergy were profoundly ignorant.

Charlemagne had given a strong impulse to letters; but in spite of his efforts and those of the distinguished men who aided him, the ecclesiastical sciences were in their infancy, and a certain pedantry too often took their place. Now, the character of a pedant is to be quite certain about every thing. The innovators therefore thought they had done a work of high religious philosophy in adding to the Creed those words of which Photius complained. They thought they had defined the nature of the Trinity better than the Nicene Council, in attributing to the Son the personal quality of the Father in order to prove that he had the same substance. They defended this doctrine by some misinterpreted texts from the Fathers, of whom they possessed very few works, and thus they set up a false opinion as a dogma, without regard to the testimony of the Apostolic churches of the East. They consulted the Popes; but the Popes, who were themselves very ignorant, swayed on the one hand by the reasoning of men whom they thought learned, and, on the other hand, desiring to avail themselves of this opportunity to do an act of sovereign authority, yielded