his wife and induced some one else to marry her. Still he preached, however, insisting on the necessity of confessing to a priest in order to obtain absolution. The people flocked to him in crowds, both to hear his sermons and to confess to him. The matter became so serious that a synod, said to have consisted of sixty bishops, met and pronounced against him. He was deposed, and then he appealed to the Moslem power, with a memorial stating that he had preached nothing contrary to canonical authority or the teaching of the Fathers, and demanding a fair trial according to the rules of the Church. Such a reference to the government is most significant, since it shows that in spite of so much that was oppressive, the Christians recognised in it the centre of law and order. The sequel confirms the reasonableness of this view. The civil authorities commanded the patriarch to institute a trial; but he refused, for the authorities of the Church as represented by the episcopate were on his side. Michael of Damietta took the lead in supporting the novel custom, writing a short treatise on it which is still in existence. The next stage was an appeal to Michael i., the Jacobite patriarch of Antioch, who wavered in his treatment of the question. At first he inclined to the view of the bishops, and was induced to regard Mark as a heretic; but on learning more about the case he swung round to the opposite view, and supported the practice of confession to the priest. Both this patriarch and the learned writer Bar Salibi wrote on the necessity of that practice. Mark, however, found little comfort in his own Church, since the bishops were still opposed to him. He joined the Greek Church, returned to the Coptic, went over to the Greek communion again, and yet again sought to be readmitted to his own old Church. It is not surprising that the Coptic patriarch refused to have any more to do with him.
It is curious to find Neale championing Mark as "the English Chillingworth." The outstanding feature of the whole story is the fact that the bishops were supporting the novel practice, which, however materialistic
