immense extension of the papal power.  It displaced the old system of church government, divesting it of the republican attributes it had possessed, and transforming it into an absolute monarchy.  It brought the bishops into subjection to Rome, and made the pontiff the supreme judge of the clergy of the whole Christian world.  It prepared the way for the great attempt, subsequently made by Hildebrand, to convert the states of Europe into a theocratic priest kingdom, with the Pope at its head” (Draper’s “Conflict of Religion and Science,” p. 271).  We note during this century a remarkable growth of saints.  Everyone wanted a saint through whom to approach God, and the supply kept pace with the demand.  “This preposterous multiplication of saints was a new source of abuses and frauds.  It was thought necessary to write the lives of these celestial patrons, in order to procure for them the veneration and confidence of a deluded multitude; and here lying wonders were invented, and all the resources of forgery and fable exhausted to celebrate exploits which had never been performed, and to perpetuate the memory of holy persons who had never existed” (p. 200).  The contest on images still raged furiously, success being now on the one side, now on the other; various councils were called by either party, until, in A.D. 879, a council at Constantinople, reckoned by the Greeks as the eighth general council, sanctioned the worship of images, which thereafter triumphed in the East.  In the West, the opposition to image-worship gradually died away.  The Filioque contest also continued hotly and widened the breach between East and West yet more.  The final separation was not long delayed.  The ever-increasing jealousy between Rome and Constantinople had at last reached a height which made even nominal union impossible, and the smouldering fire burst into sudden flame.  In A.D. 858 Photius was made Patriarch of Constantinople, by the Emperor Michael, in the room of Ignatius, deprived and banished by that prince.  A council, held at Constantinople in A.D. 861, endorsed the appointment of the emperor; but Ignatius appealed to Rome, and Pope Nicholas I. readily took up his quarrel.  A council was held at Rome, in A.D. 862, in which the pontiff excommunicated Photius and his adherents.  It was answered by one at Constantinople, in A.D. 866, wherein Nicholas was pronounced unworthy of his office and outside the pale of Christian communion.  Yet another council of Constantinople, A.D. 869, approved the action of Basilius, the new emperor, who recalled Ignatius, and imprisoned Photius.  When Ignatius died, Photius was reinstated (A.D. 878), and he was acknowledged by the Roman pontiff, John VIII., at another council of Constantinople, A.D. 879, on the understanding that the jurisdiction over Bulgaria, claimed both by Pope and Patriarch, should be definitely yielded to Rome.  This, however, was not done; and the Pope sent a legate to Constantinople, recalling his declaration in favour of Photius.  The legate,