The Sack of Constantinople & Revival of Learning …
Let this ever be regarded as the grand distinction of Britain. And while the Italian historian, down to the present hour, continues to rejoice in the triumph of literature and the arts upon his native soil, nearly five hundred years ago; let not the British Christian fall behind him in joy and gratitude over that contemporaneous triumph which at last led his country to a better hope and a brighter day. Let him rather compare the two countries now, and observe the too much neglected, but all -- sufficient reason, for the prodigious distinction between the two.

No storm, however, arose in Italy, nor any cloud, to obscure the rising sun of her classical literature. On the contrary, though Rome itself may still be troubled, that sun is only about to burst upon the country in all its splendour, and the men of Italy are to be allowed ample scope still, for above a hundred years, to do their utmost. Very different was the reception given by our forefathers, as a nation or as a government, to the voice of God. Here at home, in some resemblance to the visit paid by the Almighty to Elijah, there must, it seems, be first the wind, and then the earthquake, and then the fire, before ever the “still small voice” is heard with effect, Nay, and when once it comes through Tyndale’s version, and is heard by the people, we shall find, however strange, that no official man in England will be able to divine from whence it came, or by what mysterious conveyance it had reached their ears!

We have conceded to Italy the precedence which she claims, as the 
revivalist of classical learning; and truly the first buds of promise in the fourteenth, were as nothing to the full -- blown garden of the fifteenth century. In the first years of its commencement, individual natives of Greece were finding their way into that country, nay, from about the year 1395, their language was taught in Florence and Venice, in Milan and Genoa, by Emanuel Chrysoloras. The Pontiff chosen in 1409, Alexander V, was a Grecian by birth. The whole lives of Italian scholars, we are told, were now devoted to the recovery of ancient works, and the revival  of philology; while the discovery of an unknown manuscript was regarded, says Tira de boschi, “almost as the conquest of a kingdom.” But “that ardour which animated Italy in the first part of the fifteenth century, was by no means common to the rest of  Europe. Neither England, nor France, nor Germany, seemed aware of the approaching change.” So says Mr. Hallam, in perfect harmony with Sismondi. Learning, indeed, such as it was, had even begun to decline at Oxford, but the Eastern empire was now hastening to its end, and in 1453 came the fall of Constantinople.

Long, therefore, before the close of the century, the roads to Italy will be crowded with many a traveler, and among the number we shall find that Englishmen, though the most distant, were not the last to hasten after classical attainments. Native Italians, we are perfectly aware, have been jealous of our ascribing too much to the event just hinted, but there can be no question that, in its consequences, it proved the first powerful summons to Europe to awake. On the sacking of Constantinople, we know of five vessels at least, that were loaded with the learned men or Greece, who escaped into Italy. Of course they brought their most valued treasure, their books, with them; and thus by one and another, as well as the eager Italian himself, a stock of manuscript was accumulated on Italian ground, which was just about to be honoured with a reception, very different, indeed, from that of being slowly increased by the pen of the copyist! 

Italy thus became the point of attraction to all Europe. But how singular that the scholars of the West, as with common consent, should hasten to this one country for that learning, over the effects of which, the chief authority there, though so pleased at first, was afterwards to bewail, nay, to mourn for ages, or to the present hour!

While, however, Italian scholars were thus busy, and leaving the Pontiff to fight his own battles, they were but little aware of what was preparing for them elsewhere. They were in fact more ignorant of this, than the Western scholar had been of their thirst for learning; and was there no indication here, of but One Guiding, One All Gracious Power? 
 

The Invention of Printing …
An obscure German had been revolving in his mind, the first principles of an art, applicable to any language on the face of the earth, which was to prove the most important discovery in the annals of mankind. At the moment when they were storming Constantinople in the East, he was thus busy; spending all his substance, in plying his new art with vigour upon a book, and upon such a BOOK!  Neither Kings, nor Pontiffs, nor Councils 
had been, or were to be, consulted here; nor was he encouraged to proceed by one smile from his own Emperor, or from any princely patron. No mechanical invention having proved so powerful in its effects as that of printing, it is not wonderful that so much research has been bestowed on the history of its origin mid progress. 

The precise order in which some particular cities first enjoyed its advantages, still continues to afford room for minute criticism, but the progress of inquiry has reduced the field of controversy to a  very narrow compass. A better history of the art, indeed, and more especially of its curious and rapid progress throughout Europe, may, and should still, be written; but the general results already ascertained, have now approached to such accuracy, as to suggest and justify several important and striking reflections. These results demand our notice at the close of the century, as they will be found to involve one important bearing on the subsequent history of the Sacred Volume, when it came to be first printed in the vernacular tongue.
 

Johann Gutenberg: 
Mr. Gooseflesh changes his name to “Beautiful Mountain”
Mentz, in the Duchy of Hesse [Mainz], on the left bank of the Rhine, and four hundred miles from Vienna, may be regarded as the mother city of printing; and although three individuals shared the honour of perfecting the art on the same spot, if not under the same roof, the invention itself is due to only one man. Henne Gaensfleisch, commonly called Johann Gutenberg, the individual referred to, was born in Mentz, not Strasburg, as sometimes stated, about the year 1400; but, in 1424, he had taken up his abode in the latter city as a merchant. About ten years after this, or in 1435, we have positive evidence that his invention, then a profound secret, engrossed his thoughts; and here, in conjunction with one Andrew Dritzehen and two other citizens, all bound to secrecy, Gutenberg had made some experiments in printing with metal types before the year 1439. By this time Dritzehen was dead; and in six or seven years more, the money embarked being exhausted, not one fragment survives in proof of what they had attempted. 

Gutenberg, returning to his native city in 1445-1446, found it absolutely necessary to disclose his progress. More money was demanded, if ever he was to succeed; and having once opened his mind fully to a citizen, a goldsmith of Mentz, John Fust, he engaged to cooperate by affording the needful advances. At last, therefore, between the years 1450 and 1455 their first great work was finished. This was no other than the Bible itself! -- the Latin Bible. Altogether unknown to the rest of the world, this was what had been doing at Mentz, in the West, when Constantinople, in the East, was storming, and the Italian “brief men,” or copyists, were so very busy with their pens. This Latin Bible, of 641 leaves, formed the first important specimen of printing with metal types. 

The Grandeur of the First Printed Book: 
Gutenberg’s Bible
The very first homage was to be paid to that Sacred Volume, which had been sacrilegiously buried, nay, interdicted so long; as if it had been, with pointing finger, to mark at once the greatest honour ever to be bestowed on the art, and infinitely the highest purpose to which it was ever to be applied. Nor was this all. Had it been a single page, or even an entire sheet which was then produced, there might have been less occasion to have noticed it; but there was something in the whole character of the affair which, if not unprecedented, rendered it singular in the usual current of human events. This Bible formed two volumes in folio, which have been “justly praised for the strength and beauty of the paper, the exactness of the register, the lustre of the ink.” It was a work of  1282 pages, finally executed -- a most laborious process, involving not only a considerable period of time, but no small amount of mental, manual, and mechanical labour; and yet, now that it had been finished, and now offered for sale, not a single human being, save the artists themselves, knew how it had been accomplished! 

The profound secret remained with themselves, while the entire process was probably still confined to the bosom of only two or three!  Of this splendid work, in two volumes, at least 18 copies are known to exist, four on vellum, and fourteen on paper. Of the former, two are in this country, one of which is in the Grenville collection; the other two are in the Royal Libraries of Paris and Berlin. Of the fourteen paper copies there are ten in Britain: three in public libraries at Oxford, London, Edinburgh, and seven in the private collections of different noblemen and gentlemen. Thus, as if it had been to mark the noblest purpose to which the art would ever be applied, the FIRST Book printed with moveable metal types, and so beautifully, was the BIBLE.

Like almost all original inventors, Gutenberg made nothing by the 
discovery, at which he had laboured for at least twenty years, from 1435 to 1455. The expenses had been very great; and, in the course of business, after the Bible was finished, the inventor was in debt to the goldsmith, who, though opulent, now exhibited a character certainly not to be admired. He insisted on Gutenberg paying up his debt; and, having him in his power, actually instituted a suit against him, when, in the course of law, the whole printing apparatus fell into Fust’s possession, on the 6th of November,  1455. According to Trithemius, one of the best authorities, poor Gutenberg had spent his whole estate in this difficult discovery; but still, not discouraged, he contrived to print till 1465, though on a humbler scale. Having been appointed by Adolphus the Elector of Mentz one of his gentlemen, (inter aulieos,) with an annual pension, he was less dependent on an art which to him had been a source of trouble, if not of vexation. He died in the city of his birth in February 1468.
 

The Fall of Mainz and the Acceptation and Spread of the Printed Word …
A change had arrived, far from being anticipated by these the inventors of printing, and one which they, no doubt, regarded as the greatest calamity which could have befallen them. Gutenberg had been the father of printing, and Schoeffer the main improver of it, while Fust, not only by his ingenuity, but his wealth, had assisted both; but all these men were bent upon keeping the art secret; and, left to themselves, unquestionably they would have confined the printing -- press to Mentz as long as they lived. Fust and Schoeffer, however, especially eager to acquire wealth, had  resolved to proceed in a very unhallowed course, by palming off their productions as manuscripts, that so they might obtain a larger price for each copy. The glory of promoting or extending the art must now, therefore, be immediately and suddenly taken from them. Invention, of whatever character, like Nature itself, is but a name for an effect, whose cause is God. The ingenuity He gives to whomsoever He will, but He still reigns over the invention, and directs its future progress. At this crisis, therefore, just as if to make the reference to Himself more striking, and upon our part more imperative, we have only to observe what then took place, and the consequences which immediately followed.

Fust and Schoeffer had completed their first dated Bible, of 1462, but this very year the city of Mentz must be invaded. Like Constantinople, it was taken by storm, and by a member too of that body, who in future times so lamented over the effects of printing. This was the Archbishop, or Adolphus, already mentioned. The consequences were immediate, and afford an impressive  illustration of that ease with which Providence accomplishes its mightiest operations. The mind of Europe was to be roused to action, and materials sufficient to engage all its activity must not 
be wanting. But this demanded nothing more than the capture of two cities, and these two, far distant from each other! If when Constantinople fell in the East, the Greeks, with their manuscripts and learning, rushed into Italy, to join the already awakened Italian scholars: Mentz also is taken, and the art of printing spreads over Europe, with a rapidity which still excites astonishment.

This city, once deprived, by the sword of the conqueror, of those laws and privileges which belonged to it as a member of the Rhenish Commercial Confederation; all previous ties or obligations between master and servant were loosened, and oaths of secrecy imposed under a former regime, were at an end. Amidst the confusion that ensued, the operative printers felt free to accept of invitations from any quarter. But whither will they bend their 
steps, or in what direction will the art proceed? Where will it meet with its warmest welcome, and in which capital of Europe will it be first established? The reader may anticipate that the welcome came from Italy, but it is still more observable, that the first capital was Rome! Yes, after the capture of Mentz, Rome and its vicinity, the city of the future Index Expurgatorius [of the Inquisition], gave most cordial welcome. The art, while in its cradle in Italy, must be nursed under the inquisitive and much amused eye of the Pontiff himself!

One might very naturally have presumed, that the enemies of light and learning would have been up in arms; and it is certainly not the least extraordinary fact connected with the memorable invention of printing, that no alarm was expressed, -- neither at its discovery, nor its first application, even though the very first book was the Bible. The briefmen or copyists, it is true, were angry in prospect of losing their means of subsistence; and in Paris they had talked of necromancy, or the black art, being the origin of all this; but there was not a whisper of the kind in Italy. 

Indeed, as to an existing establishment of any kind, anywhere, no 
dangerous consequences were apprehended, by a single human being as far as we know; but most certainly none by the reigning Pontiff himself, or even by the conclave with all its wonted foresight. On the contrary, the invention was hailed with joy, and its first effects were received with enthusiasm. Not one man appears to have perceived its bearing, or once dreamt of its ultimate results. No, the German invention was to be carried to its perfection on Italian ground. Residents and official persons in Rome itself, are to be its first promoters, and that under the immediate eye of Paul II, a man by no means friendly, either to learning, or to learned men.

This curious incident is rendered much more so, by one or two others in immediate connection with it. Even while the art was yet a secret in Germany, the very first individual of whom we read as having longed for its being brought to Rome, was a Cardinal, Nicholas de Cusa; the first ardent promoter of the press in that city was a Bishop, John Andreas, the Bishop of Aleria and Secretary to the Vatican Library. He furnished the manuscripts for the press, prepared the editions, and added the epistles dedicatory. It had been on the summit of a hill, twenty-eight miles east of Rome, near Subiaco, and close by the villa once occupied by the Emperor 
Nero, that the first printing -- press was set up. In the monastery there, by Conrad Sweynheim and Arnold Pannartz from Germany, an edition of Lactantius’ Institutions was finished in the year 1465; but next year, they removed, by invitation, into the mansion house of two knights in Rome itself. They were two brothers, Peter and Francis de Maximis. Here it was that, aided by the purse of  Andreas, the first fount [font] of types in the Roman character, so called ever since, was prepared; and all other materials being ready, they commenced with such spirit and vigour, that the Secretary of the Vatican “scarcely allowed himself time to sleep.” Let him speak once for himself, in one of his dedications prefixed to Jerome’s Epistles.

“It was,” says he to the Pontiff, “in your days, that among other Divine favours this blessing was bestowed on the Christian world, that every poor scholar can purchase for himself a library for a small sum -- that those volumes which heretofore could scarce be bought for a hundred crowns may now be procured for less than twenty, very well printed, and free from those faults with which  manuscripts used to abound -- for such is the art of our printers and letter makers, that no ancient or modern discovery is comparable to it. Surely the German nation deserves our highest esteem for the invention of the most useful of arts. The wish of the noble and divine Cardinal Cusa is now, in year time, accomplished, who earnestly desired that this sacred art, which then seemed rising in Germany, might be brought to Rome. It is my chief aim in this epistle to let posterity know that the art of printing and type -- making was brought to Rome under Paul II.  Receive, then, the first volume of St. Jerome graciously, -- and  take the excellent masters of the art, Conrad Sweynheim and Arnold Pannartz, Germans, under your protection.”

This Pontiff, named Peter Barbo, and a Venetian by birth, had no sooner come into office, in 1464, than he immediately suppressed the College of abbreviators and turned out all the clerks of the breves, regardless of the sums they had paid for their places. And although this body was composed of the most distinguished men of learning and genius in Rome, he chose to say they were of no use, or unlearned! Yet now, scarcely two years after, the same man was sauntering into the printing office, nay, it is affirmed that he visited it “frequently and examined with admiration every branch of this new art!” Would he have done this had he foreseen the consequences?

We have been thus particular as to the capital of Italy, not forgetful of the place it then occupied in the world, and especially afterwards, in the sixteenth century. The facts now mentioned place that power in a point of view not unworthy of observation ever since. Before long, no invention was to occasion such perplexity to Rome and her conclave as that of printing, and yet the art enters Italy, and the Pontiff himself, as it were, cordially sanctions the insertion of a wedge which all Italy will drive; or, in 
other words, he breaks the ground, and gives the first onset in a direction which his successors have toiled in vain to arrest. Little did Peter Barbo the Venetian Pontiff, know what he was about, when wandering into the printing office for his amusement. When examining, with a mixture of wonder and delight, the different movements of the printing machine, had he only suspected the mighty and irresistible consequences, how soon would he have  reduced the whole concern to ashes, and discharged the thunders of the Vatican in every direction! But no, and in Rome itself, the printers, compositors, and pressmen, shall go on issuing folio after folio, and of works which still exist and enrich the libraries of Europe.

Independently, however, of all this, what signified Rome, when compared with the extent to which the art had now reached? Had a single city or town waited for the concurrence or sanction of the Pontiff? So far from it, Hamburg in Franconia, and Cologne, had preceded Rome, and in ten years only after the capture of Mentz, the art had reached to upwards of thirty cities and towns, including Venice, and Strasburg, Paris, and Antwerp; in only ten years more ninety other places had followed the example, including Basil and Brussels, Westminster, Oxford, and London, Geneva, Leipzig, and Vienna. 

With regard to Germany, the mother country of this invention, Koberger of Nuremberg was supposed to be the most extensive printer of the fifteenth century. Having twenty -- four presses, and one hundred men, constantly at work, besides employing the presses of Switzerland and France, he printed at least twelve editions of the Latin Bible. And when we turn to the native capital of the reigning Pontiff, Venice, where printing had commenced only two years after Rome, what had ensued in the next thirty, or before 1500? Panzer has reckoned up not fewer than one hundred and ninety-eight printers in Venice alone, more than sixty of whom had commenced business before the year 1480, and altogether, by the close of the century, they had put forth at least two thousand nine hundred and eighty distinct publications, among which are to be found more than twenty editions of the Latin Bible. As the roman letter was first used in Rome, so the italic was in Venice, where Aldus had offered a piece of gold for every typographical error which could be detected in any of his printed pages.

In short, before the close of this century, a space of only thirty-eight years from the capture of Mentz, the press was busy, in at least two hundred and twenty different places, throughout Europe, and the number of printing – presses was far above a thousand! This rapidity, rendered so much the more astonishing from the art having risen to its perfection all at once, producing works so beautiful that they have never been excelled, has been often remarked, though it has never yet been fully described. To mark its swift and singular career throughout Europe with accuracy and effect, would require a volume, and, to certain readers, it would prove one of the deepest interest.

But what then, we are now bound to inquire, what had all this goodly array accomplished for the heartfelt refinement, the best or true enlargement of the human mind? To see such intellectual relish, such sensibility and taste spring up amidst general ignorance and barbarity, was the wonder of the age; but what had all this painting, and statuary, and architecture, nay, this learning and printing, effected, and more especially for the masses, or the people as such? What had they done for the emancipation of the soul from bondage, or its clear escape from tyrannizing lust? What, for its way of access unto God, or the only way of acceptance with Him? Absolutely nothing; nay, to speak correctly, if the uses to which all things had been converted be observed, far worse than nothing. Those venerated and confessedly beautiful piles throughout Europe, with all that they contained, and in many instances now contain, assume a very grave and somber aspect, whenever it is remembered that in them we behold but the ingenious and laborious efforts of the blind, mistaking their way to “a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.” They stand before us as the professed and united homage of thousands, in their lifetime and by their dying testaments to that Being, before whom all external display, all outward adorning, the magnificence of building or the melody of sounds -- nay the extended hands, the bended knee and the uplifted eye, are as nothing without the intelligent exercise of the inward faculties.

Now, not to speak of other nations, what in Britain had yet been done with regard to these? Were the inward faculties cultivated, or even allowed to be so? Was there any attention yet paid to a vernacular literature which could interest or enlarge the general mind? So far from it, for any one man to read a fragment of Scripture in his native tongue, though yet merely in 
manuscript, was sure to expose to oppression; and for the first half of this very century, whether in England or Scotland, the barbarity of burning to ashes, and of severe persecution for opinions held, had been practised by all the authorities. Nor were they, in England, diverted from such cruelty till engrossed by war with France. Then came those intestine divisions and heartburnings -- the wars of the White and Red Rose -- those deadly feuds between the Houses of York and Lancaster, when, as Fuller has expressed it, in reference to any who thought for themselves, “the storm was their shelter.” These wars, however, so far from affecting the hold which the Pontiff had of this country, were only so many too evident proofs of the secret but prodigious influence of his votaries, in murdering one man and setting up another. At the close of the long conflict, therefore, by the downfall of Richard III -- after thirteen pitched battles -- at the expense of more than a hundred thousand men -- Henry the Seventh, or the first prince of the House of Tudor, most dutifully allied himself with the paramount power of Rome; and began to educate his second son as an ecclesiastic, afterwards to be known as Henry the Eighth. The father had, indeed, humbled the Barons of England while he himself remained the devoted vassal of the Pontiff; and, at the end of the fifteenth century, the capital of Italy was still, in its own ancient sense, the capital of the world. 

At the close, then, of this brief sketch, however imperfect, it must now be evident that to have overlooked, what have been styled by way of courtesy, the immortal trophies of painting, music, and song, of sculpture and architecture, nay, and of printing, for the first seventy years of its existence, would have been doing great injustice to what was about to follow, in the sixteenth century. Of all these sources of attraction, that singular power which held court and council at Rome, had been permitted to take the fullest advantage; nor was she slow to perceive the power they possessed, to charm both the eye and the ear. Printing, however, was the most intellectual of all the arts, and yet it will now be manifest, that Infinite Wisdom was by no means in any haste to employ it. The orators of Greece and Rome had been allowed to try their skill once more in improving mankind. the classics were permitted to enjoy their second, and more splendid triumph, and appear before the world in a richer dress than they had ever done; and since the colloquial dialect, the tongue spoken by the people, was not the language of what was called the Church, in any nation of Europe, and Latin alone was her language everywhere, then let that tongue, through the press, also enjoy unprecedented scope. Let no Pontiff, ever after, have any reason to complain that ample justice was not first done to his system. Let him first have his fill of letters, even to 
overflowing. Let him richly enjoy the first fruits, or the highest place, nay, the monopoly of all the arts, and even the printing -- press to boot; and before the close of the fifteenth century, let there be issued from the press, above a hundred editions of the LATIN Bible, -- for such was the fact. And throughout Europe, let there be hourly spoken still, more than “ten thousand words in an unknown tongue.” 

After all this, and with an especial reference to our native land, we now ask, -- could there have been a more marked approach towards the importation of Divine Truth into our Island, in the language then spoken by the people, and spoken still? A more impressive series of events, as introductory to the printing of the Scriptures in our vernacular tongue? The sacred boon was about to be conferred, and, at last, by millions of copies. To the inhabitants of Britain, by way of eminence, and for three hundred years, were about to be committed the oracles of God; at least the translator to be employed, was now growing up. But before Divine Revelation is permitted to assume the shape of a printed volume, are we not now bound to look back, and do justice to the manner of its introduction? If there be certain points in the history of every country at which the inhabitants would do well to pause; to us, at least, and as living apart from the Continent in the adjoining sea, this was, or rather still is, one of the first importance, as the commencement of a new and unprecedented epoch.

The mighty movement of the sixteenth century was at hand. The outward forms of society had undergone a great change, and this, it is freely granted, had produced a class of less fearful thinkers. But the tide of human activity having been first permitted to rise so high, and accomplish so little, ought never to have been overlooked. The distinction was about to be drawn, between mere intellectual culture and mental vigour, or, in other words, between all that man had been able to effect, and what the Saviour of the world was about to do, by means so simple, mid an agency soon to be so deprecated by human authority; or rather by only one selected individual then so generally despised, and since so unaccountably forgotten!

Thus are we imperatively bound to distinguish between the oratory of Greece and Rome, or the feeble language of literature, and the voice of Jehovah in His word, when it once reached the ear or the eye of our forefathers, in their native tongue; to distinguish as carefitlly, between the power of the press, and the power of what issued from it; between printing, however splendid to the eye, and what is printed, when addressed by the Almighty to the heart; between all the wisdom of this world, and that which cometh down from above; between printed books without exception, and “the oracles of God.” 

Twenty-five years of the sixteenth century have indeed still to pass away, before the New Testament in English, as translated and committed to the press by Tyndale, will be given to England and Scotland, but these years will only render the event more striking, -- an event which, even in our own day, and at such a singularly momentous period as the present, will be found to deserve and reward far more thoughtful consideration, not in itself merely, but especially in its consequences, than it has ever yet, for three hundred years, at any previous point of time, received. 

The accuracy of the Author in charging the Greek Church with interdicting the use of the Scriptures in the vernacular tongue, having been called in question by a highly respected correspondent, Mr. Anderson made the following reply: “I am obliged by your directing me to the expression in page xxxvi, of the Introduction. I at once perceived its ambiguity, nay, strictly speaking, its incorrectness. I have said, ‘But both had interdicted its translation,’ &c. More accurately I should have said, ‘But the 
Eastern for more than a century had, to all intents and purposes, 
identified herself with the Western Church, which had now interdicted,’ &c. The Greek Church cannot be exonerated at that period as to the Sacred Scriptures. This was what was meant, and had it been so put, would have still more enhanced the boldness of Wycliffe, who did not quail before this dominant Mystery of Iniquity.

“I am perfectly aware that there is a distinction to be observed 
between the Greek Church in its earlier stages, and the Roman; and 
that, nominally, the Canon of Scripture held by the former is nearly, if not precisely, the same with our own, though they plead for the Divine authority of the Septuagint. At the same time, it must ever be borne in mind that, long as the Eastern Church fought for an independent existence, the Greeks were bent upon the traditions, as well as the authority, of their Church, no less than the Romans on theirs; the former esteeming the acts of the Seven Greek Synods of equal authority with the sacred volume! But more to the point. 

“The Greek Church, you are aware, never recovered the blow it 
received from the Latins in 1204, when Constantinople was taken. I have, in passing, specified the Council of Tholouse; But fourteen years before, the Eastern Church had identified herself with whatever Rome determined. Many of her members might dissent, but this by no means has any -- the slightest place in history. Hence, in the Twelfth General, or Fourth Lateran Council, 1215, Innocent III crowned all former invasions of the Eastern Churches by claiming servile obedience from all by name, and in this order: 
1. Constantinople; 
2. Alexandria; 
3. Antioch; 
4. Jerusalem. 
“Then came the Council of Tholouse in 1229; and in sixteen years 
after, under Innocent IV., at Lyon, in the Thirteenth General 
Council, he carried triumphantly every point. The Greek Emperor 
himself, nay, and the Patriarch of Constantinople, were present, 
while the Pope was deposing the Emperor of the West, and 
releasing his subjects from their allegiance. Constantinople and 
Antioch were at this period merely fiefs of the Roman Pontiff. 
Moreover, it was here also, for the first time, that the red hat was 
proposed and established, the appointed token that the Cardinals 
were to shed their blood in the defence and for the dominance of 
the Roman Catholic faith. 

“Thirty years after that, in 1274, the Eastern Emperor is swearing 
to the Roman Catholic faith, recognising the supremacy of the 
Pope; and the Prelates of Greece swore allegiance by their legates. 
All appeals from the Greeks were to be made to Rome. Before the 
Moguls on the one hand and the Latins on the other, Constantinople was nodding to her fall in 1453. Even after the invention of printing, the Greek liturgies for centuries have been printed at Venice, under Papal influence. Under the same influence, successive Greek Synods have been convoked, e.g., at Constantinople in 1642, and at Jerusalem in 1672. Among the acts 
of this last is prohibited the general reading of the Scriptures.”

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