the hands of the godless—they have enriched, honoured, exalted, and brought back to its proper condition, the Roman church of thy brother the apostle Peter. But if my works cast me into peril, let their merits at least free me; and let not those whom thy aforesaid brother in the faith and in the flesh, Peter the chief apostle of the apostles, wishes to have rejoice and prosper, be saddened by this—that is, through me whom they themselves had sent!"
This is not, oh my masters and august emperors, this is not flattery. I tell ye truly, and I do not sew pillows under my arms—the thing, I say, is true: after two days, through your merits the sea became calm and so tranquil, that when our sailors deserted us, we ourselves sailed the boat to Leucate—a hundred and forty miles, namely—suffering no danger or discomfort, except a little at the mouth of the river Acheloi, where its current running down rapidly is beaten back against the waves of the sea.
How then, most mighty emperors, will ye repay the Lord for all that which for your sakes He did to me. I will tell ye how God wishes this and demands this to be done. And although He can do it without ye, He wishes nevertheless that ye shall be His instruments in this matter. For He himself furnishes what shall be offered unto Him—keeps what He demands from us, in order to crown His own work. Pay attention then, I beg. Nicephorus, being a man who scorns all churches, on account of the wrath in which he abounds towards ye, has ordered the patriarch of Constantinople to raise the church of Hydronto to the rank of a bishopric, and not to permit any longer, throughout all Apulia and Calabria, that the divine mysteries be celebrated in Latin, but to have them celebrated in Greek. He says that the former popes were traders and that they sold the Holy Spirit—that Spirit by which all things are vivified and ruled; which fills the universe; which knows the Word; which is co-eternal, and of one substance with God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ, without beginning, without end, for ever true; who (Christ) is not valued at a fixed price, but is bought by the clean-hearted for as much as they hold Him to be worth. And so Poly-
