After the council, the Roman bishop, Leo, himself protested in three letters of the 22d May, 452 ; the first of which was addressed to the emperor Marcian, the second to the empress PulcJieria, the third to Anatolius, patriarch of Constantinople.'' He expressed his satisfaction with the doctrinal results of the council, but declared the elevation of the bishop of Constanti- nople to the patriarchal dignity to be a work of pride and ambition — the humble, modest pope ! — to be an attack upon the rights of other Eastern metropolitans — the invader of the same rights in Gaul ! — especially upon the rights of the Roman see guaranteed by the council of Nice — on the authority of a Roman interpolation ! — and to be destructive of the peace of the church — which the popes have always sacredly kept ! He would hear nothing of political considerations as the source of the authority of his chair, but pointed rather to Divine institution and the primacy of Peter. Leo speaks here with great rever- ence of tlie first ecumenical council, under the false impression that that council in its sixth canon acknowledged the primacy of Rome ; but with singular indifference of the second ecumen- ical council, on account of its third canon, which was con- firmed at Chalcedon. He charges Anatolius with using for his own ambition a council, which had been called simply for the ex^rmination of heresy and the establishment of the faith. But the canons of the Nicene council, inspired by the Holy Ghost, could be superseded by no synod, however great ; and all that came in conflict with them was void. He exhorted Anatolius to give up his ambition, and reminded him of the words : Tene quod habes, ne alius accipiat coronam tuam.^ But this protest could not change the decree of the council nor the position of the Greek church in the matter, although, * Mansi, vii. p. 446^54 ; Uarduin, ii. 639-643 ; Ilefele, ii. 524, 525. * Leo, Epist. 104, 105, and 100 (al. ep. 78-80). Comp. Hefele, 1. c. ii. 530 sqq. ' Rev. iii. 11. § 56. SrNODICAL LEGISLATION, ETC. 283 under the influence of the emperor, Anatolius wrote an humble letter to Leo. The bishojDS of Constantinople asserted their rank, and were sustained by the Byzantine emperors. The twenty-eighth canon of the Chalcedonian council was expressly confirmed by Justinian L, in the 131st I^ovelle (c. 1), and solemnly renewed by the Trullan council (can. 36), but was omitted in the Latin collections of canons by Prisca, Dionysius, Exiguus, and Isidore. The loud contradiction of Home gradu- ally died away ; yet she has never formally acknowledged this canon, except during the Latin empire and the Latin patriarchate at Constantinople, when the fourth Lateran coun- cil, under Lmocent III., in 1215, conceded that the patriarch of Constantinople should hold the next rank after the patriarch of Rome, before those of Alexandria and Antioch.^