550 APPENDIX wards brought to Rome.^ On his return from Chazaria (a.d. 862) he received a new call. Christianity had already made some way among the Slavs of Moravia, through the missionary activity of the bishops of Passau. Thus Moravia seemed annexed to the Latin Church. But the Moravian king Rastislav quarrelled with his German and Bulgarian neighbours, and, seeking the political support of the Eastern Emperor, he determined to bring Moravia int* spiritual connexion with Constantinople. He sent ambassadors to Michael III. , asking for a man who would be able to teach his flock the Christian faith in their own tongue. Con- stantine, bj' his knowledge of Slavonic and his missionary experience, was marked out as the suitable apostle ; and he went to Moravia, taking with him his brother Methodius (a.d. 863). They worked among the Moravians for four and a half years, having apparently obtained the reluctant recognition of the bishop of Passau. But prince Rastislav was fully resolved that the church of his country should not remain a dependency on the German see of Passau. A new bishopric should be founded and Constantine should be the first bishop. If Ignatius had been still Patriarch, Constantine would probabh' have sought episcopal ordination at his hands. But the heretic Photius was in the Patriarchal chair ; there was schism between Rome and Constantinople ; and so it came about that Rastislav and Constantine had recourse to the Bishop of Rome. Pope Nicholas invited the two brothers (a.d. 867), but died before their arrival ; and his successor Hadrian II. ordained them bishops (a.d. 868). On this occasion Constantine changed his name to Cyril, by which he has become generally known. But a prem?vture death carried him away at Rome (Feb. 14, a.d. 869). Methodius then went to Blatno on the Flatten See in Pannonia (where Kocel, prince of the Slavs of those regions, held his court) as bishop of Pannonia — an ancient see which was now reconstituted. Here he exercised missionary influence upon neighbouring Croatia. But presently he returned to Moravia, where Svatopluk had become king. He died in a.d. 885. The great achievement of Constantine or CjtII was the invention of a Slavonic alphabet. His immediate missionary work was in Moravia ; but by framing an alphabet and translating the gospels into Slavonic he affected, as no other single man has ever done, every Slavonic people. He did what Ulfilas did for the Goths, what Mesrob did for the Armenians, but his work was destined to have incompar- ably greater ecumenical importance than that of either. The alphabet which he invented (doubtless in a.d. 863) is known as the glagolitic ; and we have a good many earl}' documents written in this character in various parts of the Slavonic world. But ultimately the use of it became confined to Istria and the Croatian coast ; for it was superseded hy another alphabet, clearer and more practical, which was perhaps invented about half a century later by bishop Clement of Drenoviza.* This later alphabet is known as the cijrillic ; and has been supposed • — and is still supposed — by many to be the alphabet which Cyril invented. But a study of the two charncters makes it quite clear that the Cyrillic is the later and was formed upon the glagolitic. It was the framer of the glagolitic who possessed the creative genius ; and it was not unfair that, when the second form of the alphabet, with all its improvements, superseded the older, the name of the original inventor should be attached to the improved script. Directly neither Cyril nor Methodius had anything to do with the conversion of Bulgaria. But the conversion of Bulgaria took place in their daj-s ; the inven- tion of the alj)habet facilitated the conversion ; and the application of the Mora- vian monarch to Constantinojde probably induced the Bulgarian prince, Boris, to resolve, from political considerations, to abandon heathendom. Making peace with the emperor, with whom he had been at war, he was baptized at the ]ilace where the peace was concluded, and the Emperor himself was his sponsor (prob- ably a.d. 864). He then introduced Christianity forcibly among his people, executing fifty-two persons who resisted. But it was not long before he turned away from Constantinople and sought to connect the Bulgarian Church with Rome. He sent envoys (a.d. 860) to Pope Nicholas I., with 106 questions, and 3 This is the subject of the Translatio S. Clementis (in Acta Sanctorum, March 9), prob- ably composed by the contemporary Gauderic, bishop of elletri. It is a valuable source for the lives of the Apostles.
- This is the view of Shafarik.
