why he should have cared to heap up lies and attempt murder, apparently for no possible object but just the pleasure of being in schism, did not his future career give the clue to the whole scheme. He was by far the strongest and most popular man in Constantinople, and he wanted to be the recognized head of the Empire. At one time later he seems to have tried to join the rank of Emperor and Patriarch in his own person, and when that plan failed his idea was to set up a kind of theocracy, in which the State should be the humble vassal of the Church, and the head of the Church the acknowledged over-lord of the head of the State. It was the exact reverse of the Erastianism that, as a rule, flourished unchecked in the Eastern Empire, a sort of concrete case and actual practice of the Utopia of which Gregory VII and Boniface VIII dreamed. The breach with Rome was only a means, the first step in this plan. Cerularius could easily manage to be the head of the Eastern Patriarchs, but he knew it was hopeless to expect the Roman Pope to submit to him. So he had definitely to cut the tie between the Eastern and Western Churches—any excuse must serve, for no one could possibly really care about the ludicrous accusations he brought against us.[1] Then, unquestioned master of a great homogeneous ecclesiastical body, he could and did proceed to fight for civil supremacy as well.[2] Only here the fortune of war turned against him and he fell. He had already shown Constantine IX that he was the greater man of the two. Constantine after that was very careful not to annoy the Patriarch again. He died in 1055 and was succeeded by old Theodora, his wife's sister, the last descendant of Basil the Macedonian. Cerularius, says Psellos, "tried to rule over the Empress."[3] When she died (1056) Michael VI (1056–1057) succeeded. But Michael wanted to reign independently of his over-lord, so Cerularius, who is
- ↑ One wonders, however, why he did not stick to the Filioque grievance and make the most of that. It would have made a far better case than the nonsense he thought of. However he was certainly no theologian, and probably did not realize this. He was never anything like so clever a man as Photius.
- ↑ This is Bréhier's view, o.c. pp. 209–215: Les causes politiques du schisme.
- ↑ Fun. Oration of Cerularius, ed. Sathas, p. 357.
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