evidently knows from whom the attack has come, for he begins: "Leo, Bishop, Servant of the Servants of God, to Michael of Constantinople and Leo of Achrida, Bishops." The leading idea of his letter is that peace and concord must reign throughout the Church. Woe to those who break it! Woe to those who "with high-sounding and false words and with impious and sacrilegious hands cruelly try to rend the glorious robe of Christ, that has no stain nor spot." He most emphatically asserts the primacy of his see.[1] He will not deign to defend the practices attacked by Leo of Achrida: "Do you not see," he says, "how impudent it is to say that the Heavenly Father has hidden from Peter, the Prince of the Apostles, the proper rite of the visible sacrifice?" He quotes all the Petrine texts, and he also makes much of the Donatio Constantini.[2] For this he deserves no blame, since no one suspected its authenticity till the 15th century. And he turns the tables on the aggressors by showing how often heresies, and real heresies, have come from Constantinople, and have been condemned by Rome. He mentions Eusebius of Nicomedia, Macedonius, Nestorius, Eutyches, Pyrrhus, and others, showing that, instead of being corrected by the East, Old Rome has continually saved the Church from the errors of New Rome. With regard to Cerularius's violence to the Latin churches, he points out that no one has ever thought of troubling the many Byzantine churches and monasteries in the Latin Patriarchate. The letter is neither immoderate nor offensive, and the Pope's anger is certainly not greater than the wanton attack on his Church deserved. He also shows his appreciation of the situation by addressing it to Cerularius as well as to Leo of Achrida, and by at once coming to the root of the whole matter, the Roman Primacy. On receipt of this letter, Cerularius seems for a moment to have wavered from his scheme and to have made some overtures of peace. His answer is not extant, but it is referred to in several documents. He writes to Peter of
