The relations between the Papacy and the Empire were difficult. The Popes were subjects of the Emperor. The whole ecclesiastical organization throughout the Empire was subject to the Imperial will, just as the civil or military service was. The Papacy did not like this position of subordination and resented any interference in papal affairs. Though Odoacer, Theodoric, and Justinian had always asserted their right to exercise a supervision over papal elections, the Popes had never acquiesced willingly, and even in those early days showed a marked disposition to take exclusive control of what they deemed their own affairs. It might be supposed that the Papacy, mindful of the great danger of a Lombard conquest of Rome, would have clung to the Empire; but after the Lombards had become Catholics the gap between the Romans and the Greco-Oriental Empire was nearly as wide as that between them and the Lombards. There was a fundamental difference between the Greek mind, floating over metaphysics and speculative theology, and the Roman mind, bound to political conceptions and practical ends. A theology which would satisfy a congregation in St. Sophia would not suit the worshippers in St. Peter's. The Empire, obliged to adapt theological niceties to political necessities, favoured any creed of compromise, which should promote political concord and unity. Rome, with its despotic, imperial instincts, felt that orthodoxy was its strength, and maintained an inflexible creed. The two were an ill-yoked pair, and quarrels were inevitable. The relations between the Papacy and the Lombards were more simple. They varied between war, and friendship real or feigned. In the beginning, and even, as we have seen, in Gregory's time, there was war; but then began the conversion of the Lombards to Christianity, and intervals of peace followed, during which the Lombard king saluted the Pope as "Most Holy Father," and the Pope replied "My well-beloved Son." FOOTNOTES: [4] _Le cronache italiane del medio evo descritte_, Ugo Balzani (translated). CHAPTER V THE COMING OF THE FRANKS (726-768) We now come to the separation of the Latin world from the Greek world in both political and ecclesiastical affairs, and to the reconstruction of Europe by the alliance of the Franks and the Papacy. The plot continues to be very simple. The Empire, pressed by dangerous enemies, tried once more to gain political strength by ecclesiastical legislation; the effect of this legislation on the Imperial provinces in Italy was to cause rebellion. The Papacy broke the ties that bound it to the Empire; then, finding itself defenceless before the Lombards, made an alliance with the Franks, who invaded Italy and overthrew the Lombards.