calls Leo "Christi- ■* De vocatione omnium gentium — a work praised highly even by Erasmus, Luther, Bullinger, and Grotius. Quesnel has only proved the possibility of Leo's being the author. Comp. Perthel, 1. c. p. 127 sqq. The Sacramentariura Leonis, or a collection of liturgical prayers for all the festival days of the year, contains Bome of his prayers, but also many which are of a later date. § 64. THE PAPACY FROM LEO I. TO GEEGORY I. 323 § 64. The Papacy from, Leo I. to Gregory I. a. d. 461-590. The first Leo and tlic first Gregory are the two greatest bisliops of Rome in the first six centuries. Between tliem no important personage appears on the chair of Peter ; and in the course of that intervening century the idea and tlie powder of the papacy make no material advance. In truth, they went farther in Leo's mind than they did in Gregory's. Leo tliought and acted as an absolute monarch ; Gregory as first among the patriarchs ; but both under the full conviction that they were the successors of Peter. After the death of Leo, the archdeacon Hilary, who had represented him at the council of Ephesus, was elected to his place, and ruled (461-468) upon his principles, asserting the strict orthodoxy in the East and the authority of the primacy in Gaul. His successor, Simplicius (468—483), saw the final dissolu- tion of the empire under Romulus Augustulus (476), but, as he takes not the slightest notice of it in his epistles, he seems to have ascribed to it but little importance. The papal power had been rather favored than hindered in its growth by the imbecility of the latest emperors. Wow^, to a certain extent, it stepped into the imperial vacancy, and the successor of Peter became, in the mind of the Western nations, sole heir of the old Roman imperial succession. On the fall of the empire the pope became the political subject of the barbarian and heretical (for they were Arian) kings ; but these princes, as most of the heathen emperors had done, allowed him, either from policy, or from ignorance or indifi"erence, entire freedom in ecclesiastical afi'airs. Li Italy the Catholics had by far the ascendency in numbers and in culture. And the Arianism of the new rulers was rather an outward profession than an inward conviction. Odoacer, who first assumed the kingdom of Italy (476-493), was tolerant to- ward the orthodox faith, yet attempted to control the papal election in 483 in the interest of the state, and prohibited, under penalty of the anathema, the alienation of church prop- 324 TIIIED PEEIOD, A.D. 311-590. erty by any bislaop. Twenty years later a Roman council protested against this intervention of a layman, and pro- nomiced the above prohibition null and void, but itself passed a similar decree against the alienation of church estates/ Pope Felix II., or, according to anotlier reckoning, III. (483-492), continued the war of his predecessor