his intentions and those of the Cardinals. These monks actually set out for Nicea in the following year, (A.D. 1233,) bearing a letter to the Patriarch Germanus, in which the Pope compared the Greek schism to that of Samaria. It will be granted that the comparison was not very exact.
In fact, Rome was neither Jerusalem, nor the universal temple, nor the guardian of the law. These titles rather belonged to the Eastern Church than to the Roman, which had altered dogmas and Apostolic laws, while the other had piously preserved them. In the same letter Gregory IX. claims, as head of the Church, the twofold power, spiritual and temporal; he even maintains that Jesus Christ gave that power to St. Peter when he said to him, "Put up thy sword into the sheath."[1] This interpretation of the text is worthy of the opinion it was cited to sustain. Gregory IX. concludes by attacking the use of leavened bread for the Eucharist. "That bread," he said, "typifies the corruptible body of Jesus Christ, while the unleavened bread represents his risen and glorious body." The four Western monks were received at Nicea with great honours. They conferred with the Greek clergy concerning the procession of the Holy Ghost; the report is still extant that was made in the West.[2] In this report the monks claim to have had the advantage, as may well be imagined; but by their own showing, they confounded substance with personality in the Trinity — the essential procession, with the temporary sending of the Holy Spirit upon the Church; they misquoted Scripture and the Fathers; they could give no reason for the addition made to the creed; and they likened that addition, irregularly made, and involving a new dogma, to the development that the œcumenical Council of Constantinople had given to the creed of the first œcumenical Council of Nicea.
