He felt that he must now fight for the ideal of his life, and this feeling nerved him; not a muscle of his face twitched.
"How long will you keep me waiting?" asked Belisarius angrily.
"Until you are capable and worthy of listening to me. You are possessed by Urchitophel, the demon of anger."
"Speak! Defend yourself!" cried Belisarius, reseating himself.
"The accusation of this godless man," began Silverius, "only asserts, sooner than I had intended, a right of the Holy Church, which I did not wish to insist upon during these unquiet times. It is true that I concluded this contract with the barbarian King."
A movement of indignation escaped the Byzantines present.
"Not from love of worldly power, not to acquire any new privileges, did I treat with the King of the Goths, at that time master of this country. No! the saints be my witness! I did it merely because it was my duty to prevent the lapse of an ancient right of the Church."
"An ancient right?" asked Belisarius impatiently.
"An ancient right!" repeated Silverius, "which the Church has neglected to assert until now. Her enemies oblige her to declare it at this moment. Know then, representative of the Emperor! hear it, generals and soldiers! that which the Church demanded of Theodahad has been her right for two centuries; the Goth only confirmed it. In the same place whence the Prefect, with sacrilegious hand, took this document, he might also have found that which originally established our right. The pious Emperor Constantinus--who, first of all the predecessors of Justinian, received the teaching of the Gospel--moved by the prayers of his blessed mother, Helena, and after having trampled his enemies under foot by the help of the saints, and particularly by that of St. Peter, did, in thankful acknowledgment of such help, and to prove to all the world that crown and sword should bow before the Cross of Christ, bestow the city of Rome and its district, with all the neighbouring towns and their boundaries, with jurisdiction and police, taxes and duties, and all the royal prerogatives of earthly government, upon St. Peter and his successors for all time, so that his Church might have a secular foundation for the furtherance of her secular tasks. This donation is conferred in all form by a legal document; the curse of Gehenna is laid upon all who dispute it. And I ask the Emperor Justinian, in the name of the Trinity, whether he will acknowledge this legal act of his predecessor, the blessed Emperor Constantinus, or if, in worldly avarice, he will overthrow it, and thereby call down upon his head the curse of Gehenna and eternal damnation?"
This speech of the Bishop of Rome, spoken with all the power of ecclesiastical dignity and all the art of worldly rhetoric, was of irresistible effect.