It seems to be perfectly clear that Alcuin’s plan was that he and his students should draw up a chain of passages from the Fathers, such as that which at an earlier stage he had himself sent to Felix;[169] that in this way they should spend the time till Karl had got answers by letter, or by the mouth of a messenger, or even at a personal interview, from each of the four, Pope, patriarch, and two bishops; and then that all the answers should be tested by the passages extracted from the writings of the Fathers. There is not the slightest sign of Pope Hadrian having a preponderant voice, or a voice on a doctrinal question more authoritative than that of the learned Bishop of Orleans. But if, as the Roman controversialist endeavours to maintain, the Pope was not included in the curious competition, and only the three others were to be counted, that is worse still for the position of the Pope; for Alcuin and Karl were to settle the matter without paying any attention to the Pope, indeed without considering anything that he might say. The Roman controversialist has to play tricks with the punctuation and with the Latin to separate off the Pope from the patriarch. There was no punctuation[170] in the letter, we must suppose; those who wrote in Latin as good as Alcuin’s could make a sentence clear in its meaning without commas and semicolons; and if the passage is read without stops the Pope is included, as he is also with any punctuation other than that of the Roman controversialist. But, as I have said, if he was included with the other three he was given a full chance of making his opinion felt on equal terms with that of each of the others; if he was not included, the verdict was to be final without him. [Sidenote: Ep. 11. July, 786.]