Page:The Greek and Eastern churches.djvu/164

138 the Fathers rightly granted prerogatives to the throne of the elder Rome, because that city was the capital. And the 150 most religious bishops, actuated by the same design, assigned equal prerogatives to the most holy throne of new Rome, justly judging that the city which is honoured with the sovereignty of the Senate, and enjoys equal privileges with the elder imperial Rome, should in ecclesiastical matters also be magnified as she is, and rank next after her." Here we have the same ambiguity in the use of the preposition ; but in this case following unambiguous terms of equality. Surely the not very difficult reconciliation of the two forms of expression is that Rome is simply regarded as primus inter pares. The two patriarchs are really equal in rank; but a certain precedence is given to the bishop of Rome, for in this case the temporal sense of is scarcely allowable.

Two facts of importance should be noted here. First, the essential equality of the patriarchs of Rome and Constantinople; second, the purely political grounds of this equality. It is the imperial rank of the new city that gives dignity to its bishop. New Rome has no St. Peter, no power of the keys; she is supported in case of necessity by something very different from that mystical privilege—by the power of the sword. Thus from the beginning we see the Erastianism of the church at Constantinople.

At first the rivalry with distant Rome was not felt. It was Alexandria that resented the honours accorded to the upstart patriarchate. We have seen how the theological controversies of the fourth and fifth centuries were entangled with personal jealousies of the patriarchs of Alexandria and Constantinople, and when very pronounced, with the more widespread rivalry of the cities they presided over. Subsequently they developed into national and racial divisions, the Copts of Egypt standing opposed to the Greeks of Constantinople. Antioch was not so