298 TUIRD PERIOD. A..D. 311-590.
Bcc as director aud governor ; that neither Hilary nor aiij bishop might oppose its commands ; that neither Gallican nor other bishops should, contrary to the ancient custom, do any thing withuut tlie autliority of the venerable pope of the eternal city ; and that all decrees of the pupa have the force of law.
Tlie letter of Leo to the Gallican clmrches, and the edict of the emperor, give us the first example of a defensive and offensive alliance of the central spiritual and temporal powers in the pursuit of an unlimited sovereignty. The edict, however, could of course have power, at most, only in the West, to which the authority of Valentinian was limited. In fact, even Hilary and his successors maintained, in spite of Leo, the prerogatives they had formerly received from Pope Zosimus, and were confirmed in them by later popes.' Beyond this the issue of the contest is unknown. Hilary of Aries died in 449, universally esteemed and loved, without, so far as we know, having become fornudly reconciled with Rome ;'' though, notwithstanding this, he figures in a remarkable manner in the Koman calendar, by the side of his papal antagonist Leo, as a canonical saint. Undoubtedly Leo proceeded in this controversy far too rigorously and intemperately against Hilary ; yet it was important that he should hold fast the right of appeal as a guarantee of the freedom of bishops against the encroachments of metropolitans. The papal despotism often proved itself a wholesome check upon the despotism of subordinate prelates.
' The popes Vigil, 539-555, Pelagius, o5o-559, aud Gregory the Great conferred on the archbishop of Aries, beside) the pallium, also the papal vicariate (vices). Comp. Wiltsch, i. 71 sq.
' At all events, no reconciliation can be certainly proved. Hilary did, indeed, iiccording to the account of his disciple and biographer, who some forty years after his death encircled him with the halo, take some steps toward reconciliation, and aent two priests as delegates with a letter to the Roman prefect, Auxiliaris. The latter endeavored to act the mediator, but gave the delegates to understand, that Hilary, by his vehement boldness, had too deeply wounded the delicate eare of the llomans. In Leo's letter a new trespass is cliargcd upon Hilary, on the rights of th«< bishop Projectua, afttr the deposition of Ceruionius. And Hilary died soon aftei this contest (449). Waterland aacribad to him tiie Alhanasian Cix;ed, though without good reauon.
§ 60. THE PAPACY. 29a
With Northern Gaul the Eoman bishops canie into less frequent contact ; yet in this region also there occur, in tlie fourth and fifth centuries, examples of the successful assertion of their jurisdiction.
The early British church held from the first a very isolated position, and was driven back by the invasion of the pagan Anglo-Saxons, about the middle of the fifth century, into the mountains of Wales, Comwallis, Cumberland, and the still more secluded islands. Not till the conversion of the Anglo- Saxons under Gregory the Great did a regular connection begin between England and Rome.
Finally, the Roman bishojjs succeeded also in extending their patriarchal power eastward, over the prsefecture of East Ulyria. lUyria belonged originally to the Western empire, leuiaiued true to the l^icene faith through the Arian controversies, and for the vindication of that faith attached itself closely to Rome. When Gratian, in 379, incorporated Illyricum Orientale with the Eastern empire, its bishops nevertheless refused to give up their former ecclesiastical connection. Damasus conferred on the metropolitan Acholius, of Thessalouica, as papal vicar, patriarchal rights in the new prsefecture. The patriarch of Constantinople endeavored, indeed, repeatedly, to bring this ground into his diocese, but in vain. Justinian, in 535, formed of it a new diocese, with an independent patriarch at Prima Justiniana (or Achrida, his native city) ; but this arbitrary innovation had no vitality, and Gregory I. recovered active intercourse with the Illyrian bishops. Not until the eighth century, under the emperor Leo the Isaurian, was East Illyria finally severed from the Roman diocese and incorporated with the Datriarchate of Constantinople.'