Page:The Fall of Constantinople.djvu/26

 S THE FALL OF CONSTANTINOPLE. though there was much in common between the two ideas. The more recent doctrine was widely accepted, probably be- cause the Eeformation had, in England at least, attached to the person of the sovereign the attribute of supremacy in spir- itual things which in the AYest had, before the Eeformation, been conceded to the pope. But in Constantinople, as at present in Russia, the emperor had always been supreme in things temporal and in things spiritual. The advocates of di- vine right in England based their argument on the assumption that certain families had been divinely chosen, and retained a divine right in consequence of this choice. In Eastern Eu- rope the assumption was rather that an inspiration was granted to them on their appointment. A divine right of succession, so far as I am aware, never formed part of the popular belief. The ruler was the " Lord's anointed," and is so called by the Greek writers' of the twelfth century, but he was only enti- tled to be regarded as possessing this sacred character after he had been anointed. Ilis selection was another matter, and the people of Constantinople never lost sight of the fact that, they had a right to appoint an emperor when there was a va- cancy. With this exception the right of the emperor was theoretically undisputed and indisputable. The conception of government was of an authority over the nation with which the people had nothing to do but obey its decrees. The duty of the government was not only to protect the empire from ex- ternal foes, to provide security for life and property, and to give protection at sea to the commerce of merchants, but also to propound the religious.belief of the nation, and to be at once the guardian of its faith, its morality, and its orthodoxy. All the attributes which in the West were possessed by the Roman emperor as head of the state in things temporal, and by the pope in things spiritual, were in Constantinople possessed by the Roman emperor alone. In this respect, indeed, the Rus- sian czar is the true successor of the emperor of the Greek- speaking Roman empire. Rut, as I have said, important reservations must be made. ^ Xpiarvv ui'Tu Kvpiov, Nicctas, p. 477.