terial interests of his see; accordingly, he writes to the Emperor: "Give back to us the patrimony of Calabria and that of Sicily and all the property of our church, whereof it held possession, and which it was accustomed to manage by its own attorneys; for it is unreasonable that an ecclesiastical possession, destined for the light and the service of the Church of God, should be taken from us by an earthly power."
Behold now the temporalities already invested with religious consecration!
"It is our will," adds Nicholas, (these words flow naturally from his pen upon all occasions,) "It is our will that consecration be given by our see to the Archbishop of Syracuse, that the tradition established by the Apostles may not be violated in our time." This motive is truly strange, to say no more of it, Sicily was made subject to the Roman Patriarchate in the fourth century. After the fall of the empire, that region had remained within the dominions of the Emperor of Constantinople. Now, according to the rule admitted time out of mind in the Church, the ecclesiastical divisions should follow every change in the civil divisions. By that rule, Syracuse properly depended upon Constantinople, and not Rome. Nicholas willed it otherwise, but the law willed it thus, and the Apostles to whom he appealed had certainly never made the see of Syracuse subject to that of Rome. The letter to Photius is but an abridgment of that to the Emperor, with this difference, that Nicholas avoids the use of the ambitious expressions we have quoted. He addressed Photius as a simple layman, without giving him any episcopal title, though he knew him to have been lawfully consecrated. This affectation was big with this idea: that no bishop could bear the character of his order, except by the consent of the Roman Pontiff.
The earlier popes had never used such language either
