ter in the East, confiscated by the iconoclastic emperors, must he restored in toto. We will quote from his letter what he says respecting the Patriarch of Constantinople: "We are very much surprised to see that in your letter you give to Tarasius the title of œcumenical Patriarch. The Patriarch of Constantinople would not have even the second rank without the consent of our see; if he be œcumenical, must he not therefore have also the primacy over our church? All Christians know that this is a ridiculous assumption."
Adrian sets before the Emperor the example of Charles, King of the Franks. "Following our advice," he says, "and fulfilling our wishes, he has subjected all the barbarous nations of the West; he has given to the Roman Church in perpetuity provinces, cities, castles, and patrimonies which were withheld by the Lombards, and which by right belong to St. Peter; he does not cease daily to offer gold and silver for this light and sustenance of the poor."
Here is language quite new on the part of Roman bishops, but henceforth destined to become habitual with them. It dates from 785; that is, from the same year when Adrian delivered to Ingelramn, Bishop of Metz, the collection of the False Decretals.[1]There is
- ↑ Here are some details regarding the False Decretals:
It appears from the acts of the Council of Chalcedon in 451, that the Church had already a Codex Canonum, or collection of the laws of the Church. Several of these laws are held to have emanated from the Apostles themselves. What they had commenced the councils continued, and, as soon as the Church began to enjoy some little tranquillity, these venerable laws were collected and formed the basis of ecclesiastical discipline; and, as they were mostly in Greek, they were translated into Latin for the use of the Western churches.
At the beginning of the sixth century Dionysius, surnamed Exiguus, a monk at Rome, finding this translation incorrect, made another at the request of Julian, curate of St. Anastasia at Rome, and a disciple of Pope Gelasius. Dionysius collected, besides, whatever letters of the Popes he could discover In the archives, and published In his collection those of Siricius, Innocent, Zosimus, Boniface, Celestine, Leo, Gelasius, and Anastasius, under which last he lived. The archives of Rome at that time possessed nothing prior to Siricius — that is, to the end of the fourth century.
At the beginning of the seventh century, Isidore of Seville undertook to complete
