that of Chalcedon : we have already presented their position on tins question in connection with their legislation on the patriarchal system.' We have seen that they accord to the bishop of Eoine a precedence of honor among the five officially coequal patriarchs, and thus acknowledge him primus inter pares, but, by that very concession, disallow his claims to su- premacy of jurisdiction, and to monarchical authority over the entire church. The whole patriarchal system, in fact, was not monarchy, but oligarchy. Hence the protest of the Eoman delegates and of Pope Leo against the decrees of the council of Chalcedon in 451, which coincided with that of Constanti- nople in 381. This protest was insufficient to annul the de- cree, and in the East it made no lasting impression ; for the subsequent incidental concessions of Greek patriarchs and emperors, like that of the usurper Phocas in 606, and even of the sixth ecumenical council of Constantinople in 680, to the see of Pome, have no general significance, but are distinctly traceable to special circumstances and prejudices. It is, therefore, an undeniable historical fact, that the greatest dogmatic and legislative authorities of the ancient church bear as decidedly against the specific papal claims of the Poman bishopric, as in favor of its patriarchal rights and an honorary primacy in the patriarchal oligarchy. The subse- quent separation of the Greek church from the Latin proves to this day, that she was never willing to sacrifice her inde- pendence to Pome, or to depart from the decrees of her own greatest councils. Here lies the difference, however, between the Greek and the Protestant opposition to the universal monarchy of the papacy. The Greek church protested against it fi-om the basis of the oligarchical patriarchal hierarchy of the fifth century : in an age, therefore, and upon a principle of chui'ch organiza- ' Comp. § 56. 814 THIRD PEEIOD. A.D, 311-590. tion, wliicli preceded tlie grand agency of tlie papacy in the history of the world. The evangehcal church protests against it on the basis of a freer conception of Christianity^ seeing in the papacy an institution, which indeed formed the legitimate development of the patriarchal system, and was necessary for the training of the Romanic and Germanic nations of the middle ages, but which has virtually fulfilled its mission and outlived itself. The Greek church never had a pajjacy ; the evangelical historically implies one. The papacy stands be- tween the age of the patriarchal hierarchy and the age of the Reformation, like the Mosaic theocracy between the patriarchal period and. the advent of Christianity. Protestantism rejects at once the papal monarchy and the patriarchal oligarchy, and thus can justify the former as well as the latter fur a certain time and a certain stage in the progress of the Christian world. § 63. Leo the Great, a. d. 440-461. I. St. Leo Magsts : Opera omnia (sermones et epistolaa), ed. Paschas, Quesnel., Par. 1675, 2 vols. 4to. (Gallican, and defending