For God's sake defend yourself." All Photius will say is: "Jesus did not escape condemnation through his silence," and "My defence is not of this world, if it were of this world you should hear it." True to the Erastian policy he had always followed, he ignores the Legates, refuses to speak to them, and only answers Baanes, the civil commissioner: "We will give an account to our holy Emperor," he says, "not to the Legates." He describes the repentant Photian bishops as "mice in tar," apparently meaning that they had got into as great a mess as a mouse would in a barrel of tar. The judgement of the synod on him was not harsh. He has to renounce his usurped claim and to acknowledge Ignatius, then he shall be admitted to lay communion. As he refuses to do so, he is again excommunicated. The council then passes a few more laws, chiefly against whatever remnants of the Iconoclasts may have still existed and against the interference of the State in ecclesiastical affairs. These last laws prove that, in spite of the presence of the Emperor's Commissioner (a presence that was according to the precedent of all former general councils), the synod was quite a free one.
The tenth and last session was held on February 28, 870, in the presence of the Emperor and of his son, Constantine. The Canons were read out and approved by all the members. Basil made a speech insisting on the independence of the Church, on her right to arrange her own affairs, and on the iniquity of civil interference in them—strange words in the mouth of an emperor. But he himself soon became the chief offender against these principles.
The synod ended with some pomp of display and with endless Polychronia. Its Acts were solemnly confirmed by Pope Adrian II.[1] It was acknowledged as the eighth general council by all the Easterns, except the Photian party, and it has always been so acknowledged by the Catholic Church.[2]
- ↑ Mansi, xvi. 247, 413, 414.
- ↑ All this description of the Council is taken from Hergenröther: Photius, ii. 63–132, where a detailed account of the proceedings will be found The Acts of the council are preserved in the Latin version of Anastasius Bibliothecarius, the Roman librarian, as well as in a shorter Greek account, in Mansi, xvi. 308–409.
