Photius then makes his profession of faith with an exactitude and depth worthy of the greatest theologian. He there refers the fundamental truths of Christianity to the mysteries of the Trinity, the Incarnation, and Redemption. He accepts the seven œcumenical councils, and sets forth in few words, but with remarkable accuracy, the doctrine there propounded. He adds:
"Such is the profession of my faith, touching the things that belong to it and flow from it. In this faith is my hope. It is not mine alone, but is shared by all those who wish to live piously, who have in them the love of God, who have resolved to maintain the pure and exact Christian doctrine. In recording thus our profession of faith in writing, and in making known to your very sacred Holiness that which concerns us, we have as it were engraved upon marble what we have expressed to you in words; as we have told you, we need your prayers, that God may be good and propitious to us in all we undertake; that He may grant us grace to tear up every root of scandal, every stone of stumbling from the ecclesiastical order; that we may carefully pasture all those committed to us; that the multitude of our sins may not retard the progress of our flock in virtue, and thereby make our faults more numerous; that I may at all times do and say to the faithful what is proper; that on their side they may be always obedient and docile in what concerns their salvation; that by the grace and goodness of Christ, who is the chief of all, they may grow continually in Him, to whom be Glory and the kingdom with the Father and Holy Spirit, the consubstantial Trinity and principle of life, now and evermore, world without end. Amen."
This letter savours of the taste of the age in its affected style. But it is no less a beautiful monument of orthodoxy, and, in all respects, worthy of a great writer and a great bishop.
