ac- cordingly (ch. XX.): " The monarch, whose spiritual rank is less honorable than that of the meanest deacon, was seated below the rails of the sanctuary, and confounded with the rest of the faithful multitude." 136 THIKD PERIOD. A.D. 311-590. endeavored with all lier might to introduce Arianism in Milan, but met a successful opponent in bishop Ambrose. Eudoxia procured the deposition and banishment of the noble Chrysos- tom. Theodora, raised from the stage to the throne, ruled the emperor Justinian, and sought by every kind of intrigue to promote the victory of the Monophysite heresy. It is true, the doctrinal decisions proceeded properly from the comicils, and could not have maintained themselves long without tliat sanc- tion. But Basiliscus, Zeno, Justinian I., Heraclius, Constans II., and other emperors issued many purely ecclesiastical edicts and rescripts without consulting the councils, or through the councils by their own influence upon them. Justinian opens his celebrated codex with the imperial creed on the trinity and the imperial anathema agamst Nestorius, Eutyches, Apollina- ris, on the basis certainly of the apostolic church and of the four oecumenical councils, but in the consciousness of absolute legislative and executive authority even over the faith and conscience of all his subjects. The voice of the catholic church in this period conceded to the Christian emjierors in general, with the duty of protecting and supporting the church, the right of supervision over its external affairs, but claimed for the clergy, particularly for the bishops, the right to govern her within, to fix her doctrine, to direct her worship. The new state of things was regarded as a restoration of the Mosaic and Davidic theocracy on Chris- tian soil, and judged accordingly. But in respect to the extent and application of the emperor's power in the church, opinion was generally determined, consciously or unconsciously, by some special religious interest. Hence we find that catholics and heretics, Athanasians and Arians, justified or condemned the interference of the emperor in the development of doctrine, the appointment and deposition of bishops, and the patronage and persecution of parties, according as they themselves were aff'ected by them. The same Donatists who first appealed to the imperial protection, when the decision went against them denounced all intermeddling of the state with the church. There were bishops who justified even the most arbitrary ex- cesses of the Byzantine despotism in religion by reference to § 26. THE EMPEKOR-PAPACY AND THE HIERARCHY. 137 Melchizedek and the pious kings of Israel, and yielded them- selves willing tools of the eourt. But there were never want- ing also fearless defenders of the rights of the church against the civil power. Maximus the Confessor declared before his judges in Constantinople, that Melchizedek was a type of Christ alone, not of the emperor. In general the hierarchy formed a powerful and whole- some cheek on the imperial papacy, and preserved the free- dom and independence of the church toward the temporal power. That age had only the alternative