Elated with the favour and proximity of the Imperial
Court, he cast a haughty eye on all sides, where any objects were to be
found on which he might exercise his lordly ambition. On the one hand,
he reduced under his jurisdiction the Patriarchs of Alexandria and
Antioch, as prelates only of the second order; and on the other, he
invaded the diocese of the Roman Pontiff, and spoiled him of several
provinces. The two former prelates, though they struggled with vehemence
and raised considerable tumults by their opposition, yet they struggled
ineffectually, both for want of strength, and likewise on account of a
variety of unfavourable circumstances. But the Roman Pontiff, far
superior to them in wealth and power, contended also with more vigour
and obstinacy; and, in his turn, gave a deadly wound to the usurped
supremacy of the Byzantine Patriarch. The attentive inquirer into the
affairs of the Church, from this period, will find, in the events now
mentioned, the principal source of those most scandalous and deplorable
dissensions which divided first the Eastern Church into various sects,
and afterwards separated it entirely from that of the West. He will find
that these ignominious schisms flowed chiefly from the unchristian
contentions for dominion and supremacy which reigned among those who set
themselves up for the fathers and defenders of the Church" (p.
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