Page:Orthodox Eastern Church (Fortescue).djvu/215

Rh arrow to the target" and chose Cerularius. That was, however, the end of their friendship, and the new Patriarch, as we shall see, was entirely ungrateful to his former patron. It is not difficult to form an opinion about Cerularius's character. Michael Psellos knew him well, and he wrote a funeral oration in his honour, as well as a detailed history of his own times, from 976 to 1077. This history is (together with the acts of the Controversy published by Will) the chief source for the story of this time. From Psellos's account it is clear that the leading notes of Cerularius's character were a savage reserve, vindictiveness, and unbounded pride. He never forgave an injury, he impressed the people by the austere dignity of his manner, and, as we shall see, on the patriarchal throne he considered himself to be placed far above the weak and paralytic Emperor, and behaved as if he held the first place in Christendom. His relaxation appears to have been the search for the philosopher's stone, an occupation that had the advantage of being always interesting and never exhausted. It was then almost to be expected that two such characters as those of Leo IX and Michael Cerularius should clash; and yet the attack on the Latins made by the Patriarch was so wanton, so entirely unprovoked, and so especially ill-timed in the interests of the Empire, that there can be only one explanation of it. He must have belonged to the extreme wing of the anti-papal party at Constantinople—the party left by Photius—and must have been determined from the beginning on war with Rome on any or no pretext, as soon as ever he had a chance of declaring it.

It was in the midst of the "perfect peace" between the two halves of Christendom, in the year 1053, that a letter arrived