the same, between the sacerdotal jus in sacra and the imperial jus circa sacra. This Constantine and his age certainly could not themselves exactly define, since the whole relation was at that time as yet new and undeveloped. ' Eusebius in fact calls him a divinely appointed universal bishop, ota tjs Kotvhs iiriaKOTTos e« ^sov Ka.^€iTTa/xfvos, crvvoSovs twv tov beov XeLTOvpywv (TvvfKporet. Vit. Const, i. 44. His son Constantius was fond of being called " bishop of bishops."* § 26. THE EMPEKOK- PAPACY AND THE HIEEARCHY. 135 CO tlie latter.' But internal and external here vitally inter- penetrate and depend on each other, as soul and body, and i'requent reciprocal encroachments and collisions are inevita- ble upon state-church ground. This becomes manifest in the period before us in many ways, especially in the East, where the Byzantine despotism had freer play, than in the distant West. The emperors after Constantino (as the popes after them) summoned the general councils, bore the necessary expenses, presided in the councils through commissions, gave to the de- cisions in doctrine and discipline the force of law for the whole Eoman empire, and maintained them by their authority. The emperors nominated or confirmed the most influential metro- politans and patriarchs. They took part in all theological disputes, and thereby inflamed the passion of parties. They protected orthodoxy and punished heresy with the arm of power. Often, however, they took the heretical side, and banished orthodox bishops from their sees. Thus Arianism, Nestorianisin, Eutychianism, and Monophysitism successively found favor and protection at court. Even empresses meddled in the internal and external concerns of the church. Justina * Justinian states the Byzantine theory thus, in the preface to the 6th Novel : " Maxima quidem in hominibus sunt dona Dei a superna collata dementia Sacerdotium et Tmperium, et illud quidem divinis ministrans, hoc autem humanis praesidens ac diligentiam exhibens, ex unoeodemque principio utraque procedentia, humanam exornant vitam." But he then ascribes to the Imperium the supervision of the Sa- cerdotium, and " maximam sollicitudinem circa vera Dei dogmata et circa Sacerdo- tum honestatem." Later Greeli emperors, on the ground of their anointing, even claimed a priestly character. Leo the Isauriau, for example, wrote to Pope Gregory IL in 730: BaffiXels kcu Upeis el/j-i (Mansi xii. 9Y6). This, however, was contested even in the East, and the monk Maximus in 655 answered negatively the question put to him : " Ergo non est omnis Christianus imperator etiam sacerdos ? " At firat the emperor's throne stood side by side with the bishop's in the choir ; but Ambrose gave the emperor a seat next to the choir. Yet, after the ancient custom, which the Concilium Quinisext., a.d. 692, in its 69th canon, expressly confirmed, the em- perors might enter the choir of the church, and lay their oblations in person upon the altar — a privilege which was denied to all the laity, and which implied at least a half-priestly character in the emperor. Gibbon's statement needs correction