harbour in which a number of Greek classics have been saved from oblivion. His Amphilochia is a collection of 326 theological essays, also put together without any order in the form of question and answer, and addressed to Amphilochius, Metropolitan of Cycicus, one of Photius's numerous pupils. Then there are a number of canonical works and controversy written in after years against the Latins and various heretics, commentaries on parts of the Bible, a Lexicon of Classical and Biblical Greek words that were no longer understood in the 9th century, sermons, and a large collection of letters.
Photius was then already a very famous man when the Patriarch Ignatius was sent into exile. He was closely connected with the Court. His brother Sergius had married Irene, the sister of Bardas and aunt of the Emperor. He himself held two important offices: he was Secretary of State (πρωτοσηκρῆτις and Captain of the Life Guard (πρωτοσπαθάριος). He was unmarried, so there would be no difficulty about that, and he was already an eager partisan of Gregory Asbestas and of the opposition to Ignatius, Under these circumstances Michael III and Bardas offered him the See of Constantinople, which they pretended was vacant, and he accepted it. In six days he hurriedly received all the orders,[1] and on Christmas Day, 857, Gregory, although himself suspended and excommunicate, consecrated him Patriarch. We should notice at once that this iniquitous proceeding would be much less of a shock to the people of Constantinople than it is to us. They were accustomed to see all kinds of depositions, and they usually quietly accepted what had happened without troubling about injured rights. Emperors were continually deposed and then murdered, or blinded, or shut up in a monastery by a usurper, and no one took any pains to distinguish between the sovereigns de iure and de facto. So also the Government, especially since the schism, when there is no Pope to interfere, has deposed and
- ↑ This was a further breach of Canon Law. The Interstices in the Eastern Church were one year for each order. Can. Ap. 80, Sardic. 10. The three offences Photius committed on that Christmas Day were that he was ordained to an already occupied see by an excommunicate bishop without having kept the Interstices. Offence number two made him excommunicate latæ sententiæ.
