canon of the Chalcedonian council, on the spot, in the sixteenth and last session of the council ; but in vain, though their protest was admitted to record. They appealed to the sixth canon of the Nicene council, according to the enlarged Latin version, which, in the later addition, "'• Ecdesia Roinana semper liah ait ])riinojtum^'' seems to assign the Roman bishop a position above all the patriarchs, and drops Constantinople from notice ; whereupon the canon was read to them in its original form from the Greek Acts, without that addition, together with tlie first three canons of the second ecumenical council with their express acknowledgment of the patriarch of Con- stantinople in the second rank.' After the debate on tliis point, the imperial commissioners thus summed up the result : ^' From the whole discussion, and from what has been brought forward on either side, we acknowledge that the primacy over all {irpo TTcivTcov ra Trpcorela) and the most eminent rank [koI rrjv e^aiperov Tifjii'jv) are to continue with the archbishoj) of old Home ; but that also the archbishop of Kew Rome should en- joy the same precedence of honor {ra irpecr/Seta r?}? rifi-qs:), and have the right to ordain the metropolitans in the dioceses of Asia, Pontus, and Thrace," &c. Now they called upon the council to declare whether this was its opinion ; whereupon the bishops gave their full, emphatic consent, and begged to ' This correction of the Roman legates is so little to the taste of the Roman Catholic historians, especially the ultramontane, that the BaUerini, in their edition of the works of Leo the Great, torn. iii. p. xxxvii. sqq., and even Hefele, Conciliengesch. i. p. 385, and ii. p. 522, have without proof declared the relevant passage in the Greek Acts of the coimcil of Chalcedon a later interpolation. Hefele, who can but concede the departure of the Latin version from the original text of the sixth canon of Xice, thinks, however, that the Greek text was not read in Chalcedon, because even this bore against the elevation of Constantinople, and therefore in favor of the Roman legates. But the Roman legates, as also Leo in his protest against the 28th decree of Chalcedon, laid chief stress upon the Roman addition, Ecclesia Romano semper habuit primatum, and considered the equalization of any other patriarch with the bishop of Rome incompatible with it. Since the legates, as is conceded, appealed to the Xicene canon, the Greeks had first to meet this appeal, before they passed to the cauons of the council of Constantinople. Only the two together formed a sufBcient answer to the Roman protest. 282 THIKD PERIOD. A..D. 311-590. be dismissed. The commissioners then closed the transactions with the words : " What we a little while ago proposed, the whole council hath ratified ; " that is, the prerogative granted to the church of Constantinople is confirmed by the council in spite of the protest of the legates of Rome.'