It is to be noted that this period of sixty years is full of events which caused the greatest suffering to the Popes, were unceasingly deplored by them, and resisted to the utmost of their power. The temporal condition of themselves, of the bishops, of their people in Italy, Africa, France, Spain, Illyricum, Britain, was most sad. The most vehement of persecutions desolated Africa. Again, there was the suppression of the western emperor, with the consequent subjection of the Apostolic See to the temporal government of the most hateful of heresies: the Oriental despotism of Zeno and Anastasius, continued for forty-four years, mixed with another heresy, and tending to destroy both faith and independence in the bishops subject to it. The Popes, as Romans, felt with the keenest sympathy the political degradation of Rome. Can any appeal be more touching than that which they made, and made in vain, to the "Christian king and Roman prince"? Out of all these things, whose natural consequences tended to extinguish their principate, came forth the most magnificent attestation to it which is to be found in the first five hundred years of the Christian religion.
[72] Epistola Aviti episcopi Viennensis ad Clodoveum regem Francorum.--Mansi, viii. 175.
[73] See for this narrative the German Röhrbacher, viii. 486; Civiltà, 1855, art. 9, pp. 152-3; Hefele, ii. 607; Photius, i. 136.
[74] Photius, i. 137. Der Einfluss des römischen Stuhles war doch mehr durch die Erneuerung des laurentianischen Schisma als durch die Macht der arianischen Ostgothen auf längere Zeit gelähmt.
[76] Qualiscunque præsulis apostolici debes vocem patienter audire.
[77] _I.e._, Manicheans placed the seat of evil in matter, and Eutycheans denied the materiality of the Lord's body. The Pope alludes to the Emperor's Eutychean doctrine.
[78] Catholici principes quidem semper apostolicos præsules institutos suis literis prævenerunt, et illam confessionem fidemque præcipuam, tanquam boni filii, quæsierunt debitæ pietatis affectu, cui noscis ipsius Domini Salvatoris ore curam totius Ecclesiæ delegatam.
[79] Ubi te, rerum humanarum princeps, qualiscunque Sedis Apostolicæ vicarius contestari mea voce non desino.
[80] Ad eam sua protinus scripta miserunt ut _se docerent ejus esse consortes_.--Mansi, viii. 217.