tine. Orthodoxy was loyalty to the Emperor, not to Christ; and heresy was not the display of a special variety of unchristian spirit, but an offence against State order. This was, of course, only the reappearance, under slightly different conditions, of a, spirit that had dictated the persecution of Christianity under Decius and Diocletian, and that now dictated the persecution of pagans and "heretics."
And it must be remembered that while the empire was getting more and more into the habit of using the Church as its instrument, it was also itself becoming more and more Greek in its character; and so used the Church as the means to "Græcize," or rather to "Byzantize," all nations within it. This process was instinctively resented by nationalities that were not Greek; and Egyptian, "Latin" and Syrian fought against it. Under the circumstances it was perhaps inevitable that they should fight the battle of nationality on the religious field; and that when the Christological controversy came up they should tend to take an anti-Byzantine line.
The struggle continued till the nationalities concerned fairly split off from the Church of the capital and empire, and the bulk of them found under Moslem rule at least a semi-recognition of that independent life which the empire denied them. That part of the empire which was either really Greek, or which had been content to become so, remained subject to Constantinople; and was for centuries the most solid and permanent, and one of the most important facts of history.
Thus the battle was fought on the theological field, and around theological truths of the last importance; but it was not for these that the combatants fought, but for something that in their minds they represented.
As regards the merits of the controversy, the
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