many canons of the West forbade hasty ordinations; but these canons did not obtain in the East, and although usage there was in favour of progressive ordinations, the history of the Church proves, by numerous examples, that these canons and this usage were occasionally passed over in favour of men of distinguished merit and under circumstances of peculiar gravity. We need only to recall the names of Ambrose of Milan, Nectarius, Tarasius, and Nicephorus of Constantinople, to prove that the ordination of Photius was not without the most venerable precedent. But Nicholas desired to appear in the character of supreme arbiter. Instead of modestly putting off intercommunion with the new Patriarch until he should be more fully informed, he answered the letters of Photius and of the Emperor in this style:
"The Creator of all things has established the Princedom of the divine power which the Creator of all things has granted to his chosen Apostles. He has firmly established it on the firm faith of the Prince of the Apostles, that is to say Peter, to whom he preëminently granted the first see. For to him was said by the voice of the Lord, 'Thou art Peter, and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.' Peter, thus called because of the solidity of the rock, which is Christ, continues to strengthen by his prayers the unshaken edifice of the universal Church, so that he hastens to reform, according to the rule of true faith, the folly of those who fall into errour, and sustains those who consolidate it lest the gates of hell, that is to say, the suggestion of wicked spirits and the attacks of heretics, should succeed in breaking the unity of the Church."[1]
Nicholas then pretends to be convinced that when
- ↑ Nicol. Ep. 2d and 3d In Labbe's Collection of the Councils, vol. viii. Nat. Alexand. Hist. Eccl. Dissert. iv. in Sæcul. ix.
