[336] The Churches Separated from Rome, p. 151 (by L. Duchesne, New York, 1907).
“For three centuries after the foundation of New Rome,” writes Freeman, “Latin remained the tongue of government, law and warfare; and down to the last days of the Empire survivals of its use in that character still lingered on.... But Greek was from the beginning the tongue of literature and religion; and, even under Justinian himself, it began to creep into use as an alternative language of the law of Rome.—Gradually the Greek tongue displaced Latin for all purposes, but not till it had received a large infusion of Latin technical terms.... Save this technical Latin infusion the tongue of Constantinople was thoroughly Greek. The strange spectacle was there to be seen of an Emperor of the Romans, a Patriarch of New Rome, a Roman Senate and People glorying in the Roman name, and deriving their whole political existence from a Roman source, but in whose eyes the speech of Ennius and Tacitus and Claudian was simply the despised idiom of Western heretics and barbarians.” Historical Essays, Third Series, pp. 248, 249 (London, 1879).
[337] How great was their exasperation at the Pope’s action is evinced by the language they addressed to Luitprand, Archbishop of Cremona, when, in 968, he went on an embassy to Constantinople. “But,” they indignantly declare, “the mad and silly Pope does not know that St. Constantine transferred the imperial scepter, all the senate and the whole Roman army hither, and that at Rome he left only vile creatures such as fishermen, pastrycooks, bird-catchers, bastards, plebeians and slaves.” Cf. Fortescue, op. cit., p. 94.
[338] Cf. Le Schisme Oriental du XI Siècle, p. 275 (by L. Brehier, Paris, 1899).
[339] Now that the crash had come “one asks oneself what else the Legates could have done. They had waited long enough, and, if ever a man clearly showed that he wanted schism, it was Cerularius. He had already excommunicated the Pope by taking his name off the diptychs. We should note that this is the only sentence that the Roman Church pronounced against the Eastern Communion. She has never excommunicated it as such nor the other patriarchs. If they lost her communion it was because they too, following Cerularius’ example, struck the Pope’s name from their diptychs.” Fortescue, op. cit., p. 185.
[340] Although Innocent III, preacher of the Crusade, promptly excommunicated the Crusaders for their perfidy and treachery, the Greeks, nevertheless, persisted in declaring that His Holiness was the real cause of their misfortunes.
[341] According to the custom that subsequently prevailed it was the Grand Vizier who, in the Sultan’s name, gave the berat to the newly appointed Patriarch. As to bishops-elect it was obligatory that they should receive their berat from the government before their consecration.
[342] Thus, during the seventy-five years between 1625 and 1700, there were no fewer than 50 patriarchs whose average tenure of office was a year and a half. Compare this with the long reign—seventy-two years—of Gregory XVI, Pius IX, and Leo XIII whose average tenure of office was twenty-four years—just thirty-six times as long as that of the unfortunate Patriarchs in question.
[343] Hom. II in Ephesios.
[344] “The Holy Father,” as Mgr. Duchesne beautifully declares, “has put all his heart into it; I might almost say, he had put only his heart into it.” Op. cit., p. 41.